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soliyra-the-sunbringer · 2 years

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Soli’s wishlist for Our Flag Means Death Season 2

Hey, so why not: I'll try typing up my ofmd s2 wishlist. Some of these are improbable and/or unpopular. You don’t have to agree with everything, but I’ve been encouraged to share my thoughts. OFMD Season 2 wishlist, in the order in which I thought of them just now: 1. THAT THERE BE ONE. Things are looking very good as of May 2022 but cruel and senseless things happen all the time and nothing is assured. 2. Re: the reunion: THAT THERE BE ONE. Some of you have never had your onscreen kiss and love confession take an immediate hard right into bury-your-gays and it fking shows. Furthermore the writers and actors on this show are amazing and I want to see how they do it. 3. Abshir returns! That dude is an absolute legend. I need to know what he and his friends got up to after 1x05 and I am dying to see Oluwande's 'investment' pay off, hopefully at a point when the crew are at their lowest. 4. Hornberry joins the Revenge crew. He obviously likes them (he and Stede have a 'rapport') and there is no way that man is straight. I want to see the Brittish officer -> pirate pipeline happen in real time. And I want to see him involved in Stede et all getting off their feet/getting a ship. LET HIM KISS BOYS. (Is he sleeping with Wellington? Maybe we’ll find out!)

5. Ghosthoney joins either the Revenge crew or Blackbeard crew. I could honestly see it working either way and either way is pure gold. 6. "You're STEDE'S Ed???" The many people on Tumblr calling for this are right and should say so. Every drop of Ed & Mary content gives me life, particularly the moment she finds out he and the 'Dread Pyrate Blackbeard' are the same person, regardless of how exactly that goes down. 7. Lines for Ivan (in this economy) Ok, so it looks like this one isn’t going to happen, which is tragic but it does seem to mean that there is going to be a Season 2 for Ivan to not be in, so...great?? Anyway, so the way I would deal with this is for Ivan do die in an absurdly dramatic way off-screen. It is somehow both heroic and cool and also stupid and hilarious. The actors can probably improv this one, idk. But no body, no crime, and leave it just open ended enough that he can just show up down the line (in an equally absurd and ridiculous way) if something changes wrt Guz’s schedule or w/e

8. Jemain Clement as Benjamin Hornigold. This has been hc’d so hard by so many fans...are we sure it’s not already canon? Pirate-hunter arc would be epic. 9. Captain Thomas EDWARD’S. What can I say except that historical stuff is only cool if it’s funny and/or romantic and this sh is both.

10. Doug comes out as trans, giving us bisexual (or otherwise wlw) Mary and transfeminine rep in one fell swoop.

11. Speaking of which: Izzy Hands tries on a dress and experiences gender euphoria for the first time, which serves as a major turning point for the character. (Ed and Izzy are lesbians together; I don’t make the rules).

12. Ed kisses a girl (and likes it, a la Katie Perry). Please I am dying for explicit bi rep in OFMD.

13, and this is an important one: STEDE KILLS SOMEONE ON PURPOSE. --13a. that person is a dick. --13b. and preferably a racist. This is an important point on Stede’s white-guy journey to active anti-racism.

13. Anne Bonny and Mary Read, obviously. Mary is Tig Notaro but I can think of literally dozens of actors I’d like to see as Anne and they’d all be great for different reasons. MOAR WLW

14. My favorite actors from the last major fandom I was involved in, because why the h not, is this a wishlist or what?

15. Harvey Guillen as someone extremely flamboyant and completely unhinged. He’s been the uptight, contained one on wwdits for so long. Let that beautiful little man be ‘round, brown, and proud’ and completely bonkers. Let him get in a knife fight with Jim. Maybe he’s part of the Siete Gallos, maybe he’s Jim’s long lost brother, maybe he’s just some pirate, idc. This may or may not be a Harvey Guillen stan account.

16. A new wig for Jim. Or maybe just Vico’s hair? I do not like the current wig.

17. CREW. FLASHBACKS. The people (including Samba) on multiple platforms who are calling for this are right and should say so.

18. Geraldo appears in flashbacks. He is an underrated character and Fred Armisen is delightful. I said what I said.

18. STEARD NATION. Murray Hewitt was a LOOK and I would like to see more, ty.

19. We all know that Lucius is alive, but have you consider that his life was somehow saved by the wooden finger, AKA the power of ~love~?

20. The people calling for Rory Kinnear to return as increasingly distant members of the Badminton family who all, improbably, look exactly like Rory Kinnear are right and should say so. But male family members only; we will not be doing the ‘man in a dress’ trope on OFMD.

21. SHOW US THE TALENT SHOW YOU COWARDS. The people calling for this ar-- you get the idea.

22. (can’t believe I almost forgot this one) Gnossienne 5 played on an unlikely instrument like electric guitar or something.

23. GIVE FANG A DOG. Another popular one that is also empirically correct.

24. Explicit ace rep. I don’t really care who but bonus if it’s someone we already know.

25. One time I read a post somewhere that said s2 should start with Stede standing in his dinghy with his hand upraised and he sees the crew and they see him and he is immediately hit in the face by the red silk and. Yes. That. I agree. that’s all I can think of for now, except for the general idea of ‘boys kissing,’ which really should be a given but, again, the world is cruel and senseless and we can take nothing for granted.

#ofmd #our flag means death #our flag means gay #ofmd season 2 wishlist #soliyra #wall of text #actually I think I'm just so so but I've decided to carry myself like I'm funny #spoilers #ofmd spoilers

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stomp-that-ho-regard · 2 years

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mircallablue asked:

Hey, if its cool with you I want to respond to your last anon, because they said some things I kind of disagree with (or at least they said some things I think it's important to phrase more clearly). Gonna risk doing it off anon because I'm a masochist I guess.

Firstly, Imodna really isn't a b/j apology ship, and I'll explain why. CR doesn't give a fuck about what its fans think, and doesn't make decisions to keep them happy. At least, not in *that* sense. If they cared about b/j or b/j fans, they simply wouldn't have done those characters dirty in the first place. What CR *does* care about is keeping its toxic fans on board, while also making money and building "the brand". And they want "the brand" to be as market friendly and un-offensive as possible. That's why they got rid of Brian. That's why their queer rep is either subtext and tragedy (for mlm) or hypersexual and tragedy (for wlw). That's why the anti-imperialist theme got dropped in campaign 2. That's why they never address the white-washed art. CR is 100% aware of the discourse surrounding the b/j retcon - how could they not be? They're aware of the god damned Imogen glasses discourse ffs.

For this reason, I honestly believe that imodna is at least partially intended to just be shipping bait. But not for b/j shippers - it's for b/y shippers. CR knows it needs to have *something* queer, because it's a supposedly left-wing company, and fortunately, b/y shippers have more than proven that they will go feral over crumbs. So - Introduce two women, have them hold hands, have them share a bed, but avoid defining the relationship for as long as possible, and occasionally no-homo or gal-pal them if they start to get to close to each other. And don't mention *anything* mlm unless it's dead in a backstory or it's so vague it has to be clarified on twitter after the fact JKR style. This is why Marisha interrupted Robbie so bizarrely on the new talk show - he was about to mention Dorians crush on Orym - so Marisha had to leap in and make it hetero as abruptly as possible, so much so that even Robbie and Matt were stunned. CR just wants to keep pathetic b/y shippers "manifesting" every week like they were at the end of campaign 2.

And anyone who thinks CR doesn't make decisions like this is honestly so naïve as to be pitiful.

Secondly, the problem with b/y isn't that it's sexual, there's nothing wrong with that - the problem is that it's ONLY sexual, despite trying to convince us that it's true love. I bet if you were to count, B/Y honestly probably said less than 500 words to each other 1-on-1 before saying "I love you", and I think that's probably being generous. This, as I've mentioned many times before, is a very common trope that straight people fall into when they try to write/portray wlw.

BY shippers will misrepresent this criticism of BY by saying that "b/j shippers think BY is a lesbian ship for straight people", and that's a strawman at best (or sometimes, as the anon pointed out, they'll just throw wild accusations at the wall to see what sticks). You *could* say that BY is a lesbian ship *by* straight people, which is factually correct, and this trope is why we say that. That's why Marisha said, VERBATIM "my feelings just kind of transferred". Because to her, the fact that it was wlw was all that mattered by that point. The specific women in the relationship had become irrelevant. b/j is what happened naturally, and b/y is what *had* to happen for corporate reasons. I notice that b/y shippers never talk about or acknowledge that line... I wonder why...

Thirdly, yes, it is completely pathetic that some b/j shippers would get sucked in by CR again, but honestly, it's shocking to me that anyone would. Because, it is genuinely 100% in-character for c/ritical role to just start pretending, at any moment, that Imogen and Laudna have never been room mates. They've literally done exactly that before. Imogen and Laudna might go the next 41 episodes without having a single 1-on-1 conversation, and CR fans who ship, say, imogen and dorian, will call you delusional if you try to point out how weird it is. That's exactly what they did to b/j, and that was after *99* episodes, not a measly 20 something.

I bring this up because I feel like a lot of people still don't get that THAT'S why b/j shippers reacted the way they did. It has nothing to do with the ship not becoming canon, most of us never thought that would happen anyway. We just noticed that it was a literal retcon, which has continued to this day (the Kamordah M9 animated recap, for example). We made such a fuss about it at the time, mainly to get the reassurance from others that we weren't *losing our fucking minds*, and of course, very many b/y shippers were (and are) happy to leap in and tell that we're mentally ill. Or call us lesbophobes. Or anti-sex. Or infantilising. Or predatory. Or TERFs. Or saying we hate Laura. Or saying we worship Laura. Or accuse us of sending death threats. Or literally just pick a bad thing out of a hat, honestly. Anything to make it so that CR hasn't done anything wrong.

Well, everything you’ve said here is spot on, as usual. And hey, just for the record, feel free to come off anon more, if you want to. No one’s gonna be chewing anybody out on here lol We’re all in the same boat.

I do have some things to add...

“For this reason, I honestly believe that imodna is at least partially intended to just be shipping bait. But not for b/j shippers - it's for b/y shippers. CR knows it needs to have *something* queer, because it's a supposedly left-wing company, and fortunately, b/y shippers have more than proven that they will go feral over crumbs.” Yeah, that could be what’s happening. I think CR mistakenly believes that the BY shipping fandom is comprised of most, if not all, of the queer women in their fandom. So yes, they could believe they are playing to a perceived majority; to keep them watching, and buying merch, and to get free promo out of them. The problem with that though is that, right now, as I’ve pointed out before, there are a LOT of BY’s who want nothing to do with Im/odna. Mainly because they know how many BJ’s ship it. They might find the dynamic cute, but refuse to actively ship it because they despise the idea of BJ’s ever possibly being ‘rewarded’. So, I don’t know how well that plan is working or will work out for CR. Even still, I do recognize that CR has become more PR-conscious as of late, so this could very well be just that; a PR move (naively aimed towards BY’s).

“You *could* say that BY is a lesbian ship *by* straight people, which is factually correct” This is really something they don’t want to accept. That these are straight women attempting to play out a lesbian romance. The amount of outrage you’d get from stating this directly to them is astonishing. They are so convinced Marisha is bi and they will live and die by this so-called ‘fact’ even though she never actually said it anywhere or even implied it. I think the one thing that they keep basing this on was something from the Q&A panel the cast did just before the live show in Chicago (Feb ‘20). No one had any audio or video of this, so no hard receipts. I think someone complimented her on the way she was playing Beau and wondered how she got it so right or something. And she said one sentence, no elaboration, “Yeah, you know, I went to college.” I remember that bit because people kept repeating it over and over as if it meant something. She never went into detail. Never said/implied she had crushes on her friends, or ever had flings or actual relationships with women. It was just “I went to college.” (To me, it didn’t confirm that Marisha is bi, it confirmed that she’s a tone deaf straight woman who experimented once in college and now believes that she totally understands what it’s like to be a lesbian.) But of course, the fandom took it differently, and it’s the only thing they have so they’ve held onto it with a vice grip ever since. With Ashley, I’m not really sure why they think she’s bi. She’s never said/implied it. It seems like her voicing Ellie in T/LOU and being moved by the love story bringing comfort to people means she can’t possibly be straight. Apparently to them, actresses can’t just be good at their jobs, something more has to be going on there. And that’s why the second you mention them being straight, especially Marisha, they lose their fucking minds. They’ll insist that it’s OBVIOUS that she’s bi, and somehow make you feel stupid for not believing that she is.

These were tags in the notes of a post calling out the people who were calling out Marisha after she bragged about ‘accidentally’ showing an IT guy her NSFW BY lockscreen. From user c/upcakesandhags...

From user s/hmendrickthemagician...

Here’s just a taste of how deep into this some people are...

Good god. That one tweet saying the whole cast is some form of queer, except Travis lol

Please tell me when and how the fandom collectively decided that the cast is now filled to the brim with marginalized people? Could this possibly be yet another way for them to try to shield CR from criticism? Like, if they insist hard enough that the majority of this cast isn't straight, maybe people will stop saying mean things about them? Even if they aren’t majority straight (which I highly doubt based on all of the constant missteps), that wouldn’t change anything. Someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity doesn’t exclude them from being shitty or from making extremely shitty storytelling decisions.

“Marisha said, VERBATIM "my feelings just kind of transferred". [...] I notice that b/y shippers never talk about or acknowledge that line” Oh, some of them did at the time. But they dismissed it, like they did everything else she said. Claimed they didn’t understand what the problem was and that this kind of thing ‘happens in real-life all the time’. I’d really like to know what alternate universe they’re living in.

“b/j is what happened naturally, and b/y is what *had* to happen for corporate reasons.” And I think one of those corporate reasons was FJ. BJ happening would throw a wrench into CR’s main m/f ship, and that would be blasphemous. They couldn’t allow that. As we all know, any show’s most popular m/f pairing needs to be protected at all costs, like it’s some kind of priceless treasure. (This is why I keep comparing CR’s storytelling tactics to scripted TV. The patterns are the same.)

“many b/y shippers were (and are) happy to leap in and tell that we're mentally ill. Or call us lesbophobes. Or anti-sex. Or infantilising. Or predatory. Or TERFs. Or saying we hate Laura. Or saying we worship Laura. Or accuse us of sending death threats. Or literally just pick a bad thing out of a hat, honestly. Anything to make it so that CR hasn't done anything wrong.” This is what it’s like to become the fandom’s punching bag. But I don’t think BY’s are just doing it to protect CR, it’s also simply because we don’t agree with them. This is their retaliation for us not worshipping BY.

Here’s an old post from l/uck...

She was talking about us. Maybe her and her BY cronies should ALSO stop pretending that all queer women share a hive mind. And accept that not all queer women feel the same way about every f/f ship. Accept that not all queer women believe BY is the ROMANCE TO END ALL ROMANCES and THE BEST REP WE’VE EVER SEEN and that they shouldn’t be required to believe that in order to avoid harassment. But the BY’s don’t have enough self-awareness for that. Again, ‘rules for thee, but not for me.’

#op #ask

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k--havok · 2 years

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5 Things I Never Tire of Writing

@starlightscribe tagged me in this game (thank you!!)

Rules: List 5 things you never get tired of writing. Can be tropes/themes/situations/certain descriptions etc. Basically anything you can think of.

As always I’m terrible at tagging but @boss-the-goofball @winterandwords @bookish-galaxy @jjm-blogspot @wildswrites and an open tag for whoever. If I tagged you and you don’t wanna do it no pressure or anything I’m just awkward.

Anyways. Here we go!

1. Inhuman characters

It is my brand at this point. I say inhuman as a catch-all but demons, angels, and dragons are my go-to. I also like vampires, werewolves, anthropomorphic animals, eldritch abominations, cryptids, monsters… you name it I probably love it. Extra points to me if it’s a winged character too. I love me some wings.

2. Love

I’m a cliche sap and am in love with the concept of love. Especially how the Greeks looked at love, as they had different terms for different kinds of love. Romance is one of my favorites, but I also adore found family, parent/child love, and also unrequited love, love/devotion toward a concept, toxic and abusive love, or even when love is absent. I enjoy exploring how love can be something beautiful… or something ugly.

3. Magic

There are very few WIPs I have that don’t have some sort of magic within them. I enjoy both hard magic systems and soft magic systems (that eventually turn into hard ones but shhhhhh.) Whether it be special powers, artifacts, spells, or Jedi mind tricks, I love the mystical and magical. This usually goes hand-in-hand with my inhuman characters.

4. LGBT+

Pretty much all my characters are LGBT. Mainly Bi because I’m Bi myself and I’m so tired of the shitty rep Bi people get in the media. No, I’m not “without labels.” No I’m not “Hearts not parts” I’m bisexual. That’s the word. And it’s not a dirty word either.

Sorry for the mini rant

That being said, I have plenty of characters that are gay/lesbian, ace, and pan too. I do have some straight characters but they’re in relationships with partners who aren’t straight. I also enjoy exploring gender and gender expression. I have many characters who are nonbinary, trans, are inhuman and hermaphrodites, or characters who have no concept of sex OR gender and don’t possess sex organs at all. Any and all of the above can be found. Furthermore, I enjoy weaving these themes into the world building and story itself rather than focus on being LGBT as part of the plot. I am tired of reading “coming out” stories. I want to go deeper than that.

4. Foreshadowing

Oh boy one of my favorite tools of all time! I love my Chekhov’s guns and I keep track of them better than my plots most the time. I love sprinkling in details that all tie together later on. Bonus points for both big and small details; not every piece of foreshadowing has to be something major. Sometimes it can be goofy or a small Easter egg too. It’s for sure one of my favorite tools and it pops up in pretty much every story I write.

5. Trauma, Angst, and Character Death

Wouldn’t be me if I didn’t write some messed up stuff. All my main characters either have trauma before the story starts, or more likely, suffers a lot of trauma during the story. This can be emotional, mental, or even physical. Likewise, I have no fear in killing off important characters or even main characters. Sometimes life isn’t pretty or kind. Actually a lot of the time it isn’t. I like to reflect that. That being said, I also hate unhappy/sad endings, so take that as you will >;3c

#writeblr #writeblr community #tag game #5 things tag game #5 things #about me

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zizz-asdf-re-r-o-u · 2 years

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Underrated Openly Queer Audio Dramas

So you know The Penumbra Podcast, Welcome to Nightvale, The Bright Sessions, Alice Isn’t Dead, Ars Paradoxica, Archive81, The Two Princes, Moonbase Theta Out, Unwell, The Magnus Archives, etc. You might have heard of Mabel, Strange Case of Starship Iris, Dining in the Void, Blood Crow Stories, Caravan, Dreamboy, Love&Luck, Kaleidotrope, etc. Maybe you’ve even heard of Sidequesting, Desperado, Folxlore, Return Home, The Flame, The Beacon, Valence, other shows from Procyon Podcast Network, etc. They’re all either well known, somewhat known, or at least frequently recommended audio dramas with openly queer characterS. If you haven’t, you should! Well, here is a post of underrated audio dramas with IN YOUR FACE unapologetically queer characters. No characters in the closet or “only mildly queer coded or wait until the 3rd season to find out or there’s a blink & you’ll miss it clue” kind of queer. Like if you take away the gayness, almost the entire story is gone.

Last updated Sept 2022. As I discover more, or as stories develop, I’ll likely update this! Let me know if you have other underrated recommendations! For the time being, these are the shows I’ve personally listened to.

Bastard Fur: NSFW 18+ Did you like Caravan? Do you like gay werewolves? Sammy gets bitten by a werewolf and joins a found family cult to handle the situation. Unfortunately this is stuck in a hiatus just as the plot starts, so there isn’t much going on yet, but it is very promising!

@burstpodcast: Bubble tea cafe in space with shenanigans. Beth is a shameless lesbian, and she is so unapologetically present and irreplaceable that I can’t leave Burst off this list. I believe this is a student/amateur project so the audio/storytelling is very rough, but the storyline is whacky and wild enough that I forgive it.

Dash: Slight NSFW, some 1940s homophobia. The story is a typical noir detective solving a crime. But DASH IS GAY AND WILL NOT LET YOU FORGET IT, even though it’s the 1940s. I love it. Cue “this woman tried to hit on me but sorry you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

Dos After You: A gay assassin/serial killer sleeps with a god and then chases across Europe seeking to kill him. This is for those who want chaotic disaster gays. It’s also a bilingual Spanish show and, maybe it’s the accents, but everyone is sooo flirty. The audio is a bit rough sometimes though.

Electromancy: Student mages attend the Royal Institute for the Study of Sorcery. Lots of superpowered action, tasty world building, and several queer and nonbinary characters. Also, it features a large number of well known indie queer audio drama creators, but I see so little buzz about it!

Fuck Humans: NSFW 18+ Explicit erotica BUT believe me when I say it’s very plot driven first. A fantasy world where humans & monsters live separated by a wall. This also has a diverse range of relationship styles and sexualities (yes there’s at least 1 asexual character that’s important to the plot). I will forever shout endless eternal praise about this show to whoever is 18+.

@gayfuturepod-blog : Gay Future is exactly as it says on the can. Satire about a dystopian future with reverse prosecution where the entire world is gay or lesbian. Why oh why does this not have more attention!

The Glass Appeal: Jason Cawfield has been imprisoned at Confederacy Supermax for a crime he claims he didn't commit. Married gay protagonist with cute banter and tries to explore prison/rebellion/healthcare themes. Unique audio storytelling method but misses the mark in convincing me of the prison setting.

@hinaypod : Mari Datuin is a babaylan that deals with spoopy stuff happening in Toronto with a group of friends. There’s a few humans, magic and normal, and spirits of various queer identities. (Also yay for more immigrant and first generation Asian rep!)

Hulm @go-hulm: “Anyone need a fantasy himbo/lesbian power dynamic?” The whole plot kicks off with Brant, the himbo who got trapped in Hulm via portal, and Meydinyor searching for her girlfriend to solve some interdimensional problems. It starts out silly enough, but the sound design is solid, voice acting is great, and the plot definitely gains more depth. This show has only 42 twitter followers, has less than 2-5 dedicated posts on tumblr, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else talk about it!

@jarofrebukepodcast : Dr Jared Hel is an immortal scientist with amnesia that encounters spoopy cryptids. Lots of gays and several nonbinary/trans characters.

@khorapodcast : Space adventure meets adaptation of various Greek/Roman mythological characters AND it keeps or expands on their queer origins.

The Line: (NSFW & drugs) from @pendantaudio . A troubled girl is caught in the war between Heaven and Hell, and learns she is humanity’s only chance at survival. I only just started this show, Kitty Shadow is a very interesting character and great casual lesbian. And Thomas Davies is also interesting so far, but warning for priest-grooming-young-boys (Thomas being a horny young boy) situation. It is an early era audio drama and you can tell how rough it is, but the storyline is very interesting, wonderfully violent, the music is really really catchy & epic, and it’s weirdly sex positive.

Mage and Machine: from @pendantaudio . A cyberpunk + magic story, with some steampunk vibes, featuring a half cyborg Mack, and a mysterious mage, Kailira. Mack’s ex-boyfriend/mechanic, Plinio, plays a fairly important role too. The worldbuilding is amazing, the mystery and tension is done well, and you really feel the character’s struggles. I noticed this show, and many of Pendant’s shows don’t have much, if any, online attention, including the ones that have been around since before 2009.

Mission Rejected: The backups of a spy agency do shenanigans. Zelda & Pat are THE lesbian power couple and if you take them away, shit hits the fan. Bowden is recently confirmed bisexual, and there’s other characters whose identities haven’t been confirmed “onscreen” yet. I’ve never seen it on a queer audio drama rec list. If you liked how Juno Steel broke noir detective tropes, you will like how this breaks spy/agents movie tropes.

Monstica: NSFW 18+ Ok these are all just very creative sexy monster fucking scenarios. But I’m serious when I say its creative queer erotica. Many trans characters, many relationship styles, etc. Bonus points that it actually includes/hires POC, queer, & trans voice actors, as well as sex workers.

Moonface: Slight NSFW. Come for a good balance of gay issues and Korean American disapora issues. It seriously deserves a listen, because there’s already very little queer Asian American media, both in mainstream US and audio drama land. Note that there are a few explicit onscreen sex scenes that are plot relevant, but easier to skip than Caravan & Bastard Fur. And it does end kind of Kdrama-y though. Nonetheless, I will shout about this constantly.

Murray Mysteries: Dracula modern day adaptation, where the characters are all queer and some are genderflipped. Their personalities translate perfectly to the 21st century and it explicitly canonizes any queer coded characters from the original book.

The Night Post: The story of a spoopy postal service. To be honest, the only things about this show I remember is when the characters are being gay drama™, which happens often enough that I remember it. So it’s on this list.

Null/Void: “I’m in a closet.” “Thanks for coming out, but is this the right time?” “No I’m actually hiding in a closet, but not the homophobic kind. Someone is about to catch me.” Just. Listen to this show.

Rifted: Set in a military state fantasy world, with rebels, bounty hunters and revolutionaries. Aurora & Daniel are childhood friends turned opposite-sides-of-the-rebellion turned escapees in love. Many other characters are openly queer as well.

@7ofheartspod : “What happens when you get a group of gays together and half of them have a crush?” - sums it up. I’m still listening, and it’s a very minimalist sound design/story about a group of friends in a town where an evil voice might be killing people/luring people away.

@skillsetpodcast : By the same creators as Under the Electric Stars, this kind-of scifi urban fantasy follows four college friends after an action-packed disaster in the very first episode. So far there’s only 3 episodes but holy MOLY the sound design is phenomenal, most creative monster SFX in a while, the voice actors are distinct, and it seems like there’s a lot of world building & mystery that will be revealed. You also really feel for the trauma that the characters are going through. Also none of the 4 friends are cis, straight, or white.

@undertheelectricstarspodcast : Do you like Penumbra Podcast but kinda annoyed at how they handle race? Do you also like Hi Nay? This is a cyberpunk dystopia with themes of healthcare and revolutionaries, and lots of action. Several main characters are nonbinary using a mix of different pronouns, at least 1 m/m guy, and more. Also all the leads are multilingual POC with several southeast Asians, and it does address POC issues! There were hints at a queer romance in the beginning, but I think romance has taken a back seat for the plot. Anyways, this one has very little attention at the moment, so I will keep shouting about it everywhere too.

Vacant Arcadia: Here just read my very thorough review on why you should listen to it (but skip the second half where I have major spoilers). https://zizz-asdf-re-r-o-u.tumblr.com/post/693520183249305600 Basically its a dystopian future where a group of people are playing a dangerous game to get new bodies with a hacker hikikomori game master. Also it’s a musical with vocalists who are SO SO skilled (even if it’s not my taste in music). There are 0 tumblr, twitter, & instagram fan posts. And its instagram page has less than 150 followers. So yeah, please check it out.

WOE.BEGONE : Mike Walters attempts to play a violent ARG only to get involved in a lot of time travel. He is the chaotic unhinged gay antihero that we all delight in his torture but also feel sorry for him. HE’S GOT A BOYFRIENDhusband AND NO ONE WILL LET YOU FORGET IT. Also, the writing and humor is so clever for a scifi/horror show, created by 1 person nonetheless.

Bonus 1: Bonus 2 will be shows that you recommended, although I have not listened myself. Now here are some shows that unfortunately are NOT unapologetically in your face queer, but I’ve *rarely* see them on any “queer audio drama recommendations” list or just personally want to recommend them. Note, some of them might actually be pretty popular, but if you blink & missed it, you might have never realized there are queer characters here:

Brass: This is the neo-Victorian steampunk show that I’ve been looking for, and is about a “badass” British family. Fictional versions of Oscar Wilde (infamous gay) and Nikola Tesla (sexuality wildly debated) happen to be supporting characters in here, so this show has queer characters by default. (The show luckily doesn’t straightwash, but also doesn’t explore their sexualities.) And then there’s the gay priest and Cyril Brass. Cyril gave me gay vibes from the very beginning, but i put this show in the bonus because it’s not explored until the season finale. Like c’mon, if Gwendolyn could be making out with dudes, Cyril & the priest could’ve kissed- the show notes explicitly describe it as a “romantic trip”. Otherwise, this is a well made show, including an entire multi-media universe, and I hardly see any recommendations for it.

Bloodthirsty Hearts: This is by Qcode, which is a big mainstream podcast company. The 5 female main characters are former friends who were big fans of Bloodthirsty Hearts, an in-universe show, and circumstances bring them together at a convention that goes badly. Two of that friend group end up asking each other out by the end and it’s actually a very nice arc for them. As a fandom convention attendee, this appealed to my nerdy lil heart. The danger did not live up to my expectations unfortunately, but it could be good if you’re looking for this very specific niche.

Darkest Night: It’s very well known for horror, however it rarely gets attention for Morgan and Kirby, the only gay guys in the show. There’s also a few other characters that I personally headcanon as being queer coded.

The Deep Vault: Post-apocalyptic story by the creators of Archive81. Carson & Jeremy are exes but that’s it. It’s not as well known as Archive 81, but the action & plot is just as good.

Down: Deep sea submarine thriller adventure! Did you know half the entire main crew is queer? Unfortunately, you only find out if you really pay attention to the lines. The circumstances of the plot focuses entirely on their survival (or lack of it).

Fall of the House of Sunshine: See the many reviews I’ve already left behind of it. So this falls in the case of last minute gays or “don’t find out until season 2!” gays. Luckily Pangla, Feltina, Humph, Professor Y, and Sondra are openly trans or lesbian when they appear, but I also rarely see this crazy wild show on list of openly queer media. I think there’s 1 podchaser list this appears in.

Gay Pride and Prejudice: This was made by Spotify and the plot is preetty much the same. It’s the characters of Pride & Prejudice, moved into the modern day, and a bunch of gay dudes. I think it’s a Great adaptation.

How I Died: Forensic pathologist can talk to ghosts and tries to solve murder cases. Ok so this actually has *several* openly queer characters, both living and ghosts. However, I think it’s pretty mainstream/popular/not underrated. However x2, I also don’t see it on many queer audio drama recommendation lists. If you liked Woe.begone for the unhinged corrupted disaster gay, then you will like this unhinged corrupted disaster bi. Warning for several episodes with themes of child/sexual abuse.

Omen Podcast: Pathfinder ocean adventure with pirates/privateers but it’s actually really really good. The world, writing, characters, and their dynamics are really great. With great action SFX and music to boot. None of them are confirmed queer, but Lola & Gwen are extremely flirty. Tobias & Quentin’s relationship also develops really deeply. And there’s some very flirty demons.

Putting 2 & 2 Together: This is the prequel/spinoff to a stage play that the creators also made. It’s basically a drama about Tommy & David navigating their life through jobs & moving & trauma. I really like it and highly recommend it! Considering how very gay it is, I’m surprised it’s not recommended more often!

Rebel Robin Surviving Hawkins: Robin Buckley from Stranger Things is canonically lesbian, and this Netflix official audio drama, written by Lauren Shippen (featuring several The Bright Sessions voice actors!), mentions it (and some other queer characters) many times in 1980s-style obvious subtext. It makes great use of Lauren’s script writing skills buuuuut it’s obviously a marketing tactic for the Rebel Robin book.

Splintered Caravan: Oh boy! The premise of this show is heist after heist after heist, along with lots of body modifications. There aren’t that many openly queer characters here, but there is a lot of genderfuckery, including a shapeshifter transwoman. People are swapping genders & body parts left and right (slight exaggeration). Just a note that because there is so much switching, there’s a lot of confused deadnaming too. But the main focus is still LOTS and LOTS of heists.

Stonesinger Chronicles: There are 2 sentences in a short scene where Whisper says he likes guys and Talee says she doesn’t like people romantically. I think we’re supposed to assume that Whisper is gay and Talee is aroace, but nothing happens beyond that. This is a very new show though, so there’s hope for the future!

The Vanishing Act: This is a very chaotic historical comedy?satire?parody? about a wannabe scriptwriter and his shenanigans in 20th century Europe. No one sounds European, everyone sounds modern, it’s just... pure chaos. The gays aren’t confirmed until season 2, but its a very satisfying slow burn when it finally happened. And very hilarious given the context (the 2 guys that have been pining after each other since season 1 finally kiss onstage in front of... Hitler. I know. Context what?)

Bonus 2: I haven’t listened to these shows yet, but you’ve recommended them so I suggest check them out as well.

All Vampires are Gay (note: this one seems more like an audiobook?) Hello from the Hallowoods Me and AU Pasithea Powder The Pilgrimage Saga Roll Gay Roleplay Second Star to the Left Tales of Swordfall Where the Stars Fell

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gb-patch · 3 years

Text

Ask Answers: August 8th

Well, doing big posts all together worked for a while but lately I’ve been putting it off because it takes a long time to get them done. I think I’m gonna try switching back to answering asks whenever I can fit it in and posting them one at a time instead of waiting until I’ve filled out one of these major collections.

But for now, here’s more ask answers! Thank you for the questions and for all the kind words along with them ^^.

Hello!! I'm here to ask if its possible to get the game and its dlcs on steam and play it on android?

I’m afraid not. Steam doesn’t have Android builds on their own site and Steam is not cool with keys for other sites being given out for Steam purchases, so you don’t get the Itch version from buying on Steam.

Hello! Sorry to bother you but, I had a question, if we buy the Game on itchio do we get steam keys or would we need to purchase it twice?

You would have to buy it twice if you want it in both places, I’m sorry. To repeat myself a little, Steam doesn’t like the key trading thing. Itch may support giving keys for another site, but the reverse isn’t doable with Steam and Steam doesn’t even really want you to get a Steam key for buying somewhere else either. So we just don’t mess around with that.

hey, sorry if this is frequently asked, but is step 4 free dlc or paid for? some of your sources are contradicting each other.

It’s free! There’s a paid wedding DLC, but Step 4 itself is entirely unpaid.

Hello! I just had a quick question, for the Baxter and Derek DLC's will we be able to confess our feelings to them or let them confess to MC? or will it only be one way? (they confess to MC)

Both type of options will be available!

Hey there! I wanted to ask whether or not the Derek DLC is still on track to be released in August since on the steam discussion board it says it will be released mid 2021. I totally understand if it isn't, I'm just really looking forward to it! If you answer then ty! And keep up the amazing work :D

It’s not, aha. Unfortunately, 2021 wasn’t easier than 2020 as we hoped so things are still slower than planned. It’ll come out late 2021 or early 2022.

Hi! Firstly I just want to say that I LOVE Our Life. I have played a bit of similar games but this one instantly wins for the best one! Everything about it is amazing! I just wanted to ask if Derek would ever lose feelings for MC, like if they make the deal and then MC gets with Cove would he move on? and even if you don't, after "losing contact" would his feeling fade or would he still like MC?

If you don’t really keep in touch with him and clearly move on with your life, Derek will too and he’ll be over it. But if you are still close as best as you can be, he’ll still think the MC is special. Though, he’ll always support your relationship with someone else if that’s what’ll make you happy.

Hello! Sorry if you've answered this before but: 'How's Lee related to us? Though which momma? And does she share our player-chosen last names? Also, do you know if Noelani took Pam's last name or did it happen the other way round?

She’s related to Pamela and Pamela’s last name is the one they use, so the MC has the same last name as Lee.

Will we be able to choose which (they or he) we tend to call Qiu by more often, or will it randomly change depending on the moment?

Qiu knows which pronoun they’re comfortable with at a time and you’ll call them what they’re happy with. And it doesn’t change between lines, it takes multiple scenes or even full Steps for it to switch. So for extended periods Qiu will be totally a guy or fully agender.

Will Step 4 of OL2 have moments?

It’ll be an epilogue like it is in OL1, so it won’t have a bunch of different Moments.

Hello! Just a quick question, is Sunset bird from OL1 based on a real location? If so what's it called? I wanna visit it +_+

ps i love your games so much <3

It isn’t based on one specific town you can go to, but there are a lot of little coastal towns in Cali that have a similar vibe!

Heyaaa ( I hope you're all well ), umm… it might seem kinda stupid to ask but did Patreon members can have a key for the dlc's ( all the steps-released dlc ) even if they became a member this month or later ? (me? saying this cuz it's my case? maybe ;-;), and once again thanks for absolutely all the amazing works on all the games ! u-u

You wouldn’t get the DLCs for backing there. The Patreon is for extra bonus content/early access, rather than being a storefront to purchase the normal DLCs. Rarely we give them out as a side gift, but it hardly happens and if what you want is the DLCs it’s best to ignore the Patreon and buy keys for those directly from Itch or Steam. I’m sorry for the confusion.

Hey y'all, love what youre doing w/Terry. Trans rep outside of player customization is so rare and important to see more of so thank you so much. I do have a question and its that does he have a canon sexuality? I know Miranda was said to be straight ace but I dont believe anything was stated for Terry probably because he wasnt revealed to be a guy which changes things. Im also curious if well get answers on how long hes liked Miranda since he may have liked her in step 3 before she liked him

Terry likes women and Randy likes men! And he did like Miranda back in Step 3.

Will the Wedding Dlc release at the same time as Step 4?

They’ll come out separately with Step 4 releasing first.

I really love Our Life so much! I've spent over 20hours playing it even though I only got it a week ago! I was wondering if I could make a fangame for Our Life with a different love interest but same plot. Next-door neighbors romance, multiple steps, etc? I'll probably make it on Google Slides though-

Sure! I hope you have fun with it and I’m glad you love the game.

How does Cove feel about poly relationships?

He’s got nothing against them for the people they work for, but he’s 100% monogamous and would only be comfortable with a partner who was willing to be monogamous with him.

Idk if this has been answered before but will Step 4 include the option to advance your feelings towards Cove?

Yep, you’ll be able to determine your feelings and what your relationship is.

In step 4 will there be a chosen to say we live with Cove even as just friends?

Yeah, you can choose to live with Cove and that can be done when you’re friends.

I just played the game with the MC and Cove being best friends and omg it’s still so damn cute like the wholesomeness of it all is too much for my heart I swear ^.^ Now with that all said I was wondering can we still marry Cove? if we only love him as a friend like let’s say we’ve made deal with him similar to the one we can make with Derek because let’s real no one could compete with what the MC and Cove have even if they aren’t in love.

It’s great to hear you enjoyed the friendship story! You can live with Cove, but you can’t marry him platonically. Cove has familial affection for the MC if they’re best-est friends. He wouldn’t think to marry someone he loves like family and even grew up with as though they truly were siblings.

Are you still going to be making a DLC for XOBD? :]

Yes! We’re slowing adding voiced lines and fixing errors.

It makes me laugh that Shiloh's last name is Fields because that's what I put as my last name! So in Our Life when he talked about "Ms. Fields" picking him up I was extremely confused, lol. That dude mimics personalities so much that he stole my surname!

Oh, wow, that’s a very funny coincidence, haha.

hi !! i cant seem to be able to get the scene where mc is able to propose to cove despite being at the 'love' stage and telling him i'd want to get married, are there any other details that im missing out on? the options just dont appear at the end...

Maybe you missed telling Cove you were in love with him even if you mentioned wanting to get married or you might’ve accidentally said earlier in the game that you don’t want to progress your relationship further with Cove. We haven’t removed them, so you can get the scene again. It’s just kind of easy to miss since there’s multiple requirements. You can read a little guide in the FAQ.

wait what di you need to do to be able to propose to cove? I've been trying but haven't had much luck

You can check out the FAQ linked above!

does cove only develop a crush on the mc if the mc is also at crush/in love with him?

Technically, yes. We treat the non-romantic relationship options as truly non-romantic since we don’t want to bait and switch people. But there’s nothing wrong with headcanoning that Cove does have feelings developing for the MC even before the MC has.

Is there a way to make/allow Lee and Baxter to date?

No, they just don’t have enough time together.

We also got a group of asks related to Tamarack in OL2, but I’m afraid the way they talked about people with larger bodies made me not want to post their words, even if the person didn’t say they’re trying to be hurtful. I will separate out the core question and answer it though, so people can know that info.

Does Tamarack lose weight in later Steps?

No, she doesn’t. As for the other questions included, to be honest, I don’t have to explain/defend having romance options of different sizes. I’m sorry if you’re dealing with unhappiness that’s connected to body image, if that’s where the negative emotions are coming from, but even so I can’t meet you on that level and pretend it’s a problem that needs an answer. A girl who simply isn’t thin being a main love interest is just not an unreasonable concept. Also, Tamarack isn’t a lesbian. Yes, she can date a female MC, but that doesn’t undo her actual sexuality, so I’m not sure where that one part at the end was coming from.

I wonder... can we "fight" with Qiu over leader status? 👀

Not really, haha. No matter how cool your MC is, they’re never gonna replace Qiu for the other kids around. So you can either partner up with him, follow him too, or not be a part of all that group politics stuff.

So when I play the game, sometimes I mentally call Cove “Covie/Covey” and that made me wonder, how does Cove feel about being nicknamed? Not like Romeo/Space Cadet/etc. but like pet names relating to his actual name

It’d depend on his age, personality, and your relationship with him! When he’s younger he’d probably be embarrassed, when he was grown he’d probably be more casual or happy about it.

will you be able to date baxter in step 3 while at crush with cove (but not dating him ofc) sorry if this has been asked already. i really love baxters step 4 design btw!!

Yeah, you can be crushing on Cove and date Baxter if you weren’t already dating Cove. You just can’t be truly in love with Cove and then switch to Baxter.

I just got my friend into our life, and they adore shiloh and derek sooo will there be more of them in the second game?

I’m afraid not. But you can see plenty more of Shiloh in XOXO Droplets/XOXO Blood Droplets, haha.

I see you haven't gotten any xoxo droplets asks recently but I'm still obsessed with these boys!! I was just wondering if Nate would curse under any circumstance?

Yeah, Nate does use certain swear words (damn, hell, bastard) on very rare occasions.

Hi there! I have a question about the wedding dlc. Will we be able to plan a honeymoon during the planning stages of it or would it be something that Cove and the mc would rather plan later on? Thank you! Absolutly love the game by the way, definitely one of my favorite games!

The focus will be on the wedding day itself. The topic of the honeymoon might come up a bit, but there won’t be any choosing of the exact location and such.

Hi! I have two questions and it's completely understandable if you only answer one/neither and I'm sorry if you've already answered either before! First, is there a set year in which OL:B&A takes place (ex: Step 1 being set in 2010 & Step 2 being set in 2016, etc.) or is it simply up to interpretation? Second, have you guys thought about doing a coming-of-age game where the MC has a tough home life or upbringing? (like one of their parents is an addict, a parent being transphobic whilst the player has the option to be trans, or having friends that are influencing them to do drugs, etc.) That's all! Thanks for making beautiful games. <3

There is a set timeline!

Step 1: 2006 Step 2: 2011 Step 3: 2016 Step 4: 2021

And we don’t currently plan on making a game like that. The Our Life series exists to be a safer environment for people to play around in and if we did do a brand new series that was harsher edged it’d be something more fantastical and/or plot-driven instead of a different type of modern day slice-of-life growing up story. I’m sorry.

i don’t know if you’ve already answered this, but do you have a guess on when phase 4 will come out? as well as ol2? i’m so excited for both of them, the inclusivity in this game is amazing, you guys should be really proud of it!

Step 4 will be coming out very soon! OL2 is gonna take until 2023 to be anywhere near completion. But we might episodically release the Steps one at a time as they get done instead of waiting for three to be finished before launch like we did with the first game.

Hello, I was curious if there was an official or unofficial discord server for the game?

We do have a discord! You can join by clicking this link HERE.

how long do you plan to keep ol's patreon running?

Hopefully for at least a few more years.

Are you considering ever making merch?

Yeah, but I don’t know when it’ll happen or what exactly we’ll make, aha. It’s something we want do, just nothing is set.

hi! i just found out about your game a couple of days ago on tiktok (so sorry if you’ve already answered this question) and i was wondering if y’all are ever planning to release it on iOS?

I have no idea. It’s hard for a small group to get Apple approval and I honestly can’t say if it’ll ever happen or not. Maybe someday, though!

Hi, I love the art style of Our life and I would like to know if the artist has a Twitter? Also, could it be possible to fund more CGs for the game from him/her? So many times, I wish there was one like when the cutscene of the sunshower.

That’s nice of you to offer. He doesn’t have a Twitter, at least not one that’s public enough to be shared with me. And I’m afraid not. The issue is that the CGs take huge amounts of time rather than there not being a budget for it. He’s gotta make CGs for Step 4, the DLCs, and new character sprites, too. There isn’t space in the schedule for even more. Sorry for that.

Hi, how are you?!

Are you planning on accepting new writers or is it always the same people who write your stories??

Thanks!!

Our Life: Beginnings & Always won’t be getting new writers, but we will be hiring a new team of writers for Our Life: Now & Forever eventually!

perhaps this counts as nsfw and I'm sure it has been answered before but what does Cove prefer, chests/boobs or butts? or perhaps both :3c thank you for this wonderful game (and the patreon bonus moment, it was worth all the waiting and more ♥)

He’s a “chests of all shapes and sizes” kind of guy, haha.

i was wondering- did any of the writers actually grow up by the beach? as someone who's lived in a beach town all their life it really did feel nostalgic to play through our life 1

I was born and raised in Cali! Though, not right by the beach. We still had to make trips out, but the setting is based on my own childhood memories of small beach towns we went through.

In Derek’s upcoming DLC, will we be able to reference the pact we made as teens? (love olba and xod/xobd so much btw you’re literally amazing)

Yep, you will be able to talk about that!

Oh, sorry about the Cole being secretly L ask, then!

If you wanted context: Death Note is about this one guy who finds a notebook that kills anyone who you write the name of in there. The guy eventually develops a God Complex and starts mass killing criminals and stuff. L is the one trying to find out who is killing all these people.

Me and my sister first joked about it because I couldn't remember how to translate a word about the way Cove was sitting, so I just did the pose, and it looked a lot like how L himself sits! Then we just snowballed from there, with more and more nonsense connections.

That’s okay! Thanks for explaining. I’m sorry I didn’t know what you meant.

#our life #ask #gb patch #gb patch games

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oh-hush-its-perfect · 3 years

Note

do you think there is any significance that alex's colour scheme is green and pink? or do you think rr went "u know what this character needs? to look like a watermelon"

((Prefacing this by saying that I'm giving RR way too much credit here, but you shouldn't take anything an author does for granted— even a serial author who often makes blunders and mistakes.))

A while ago I saw a (pretty unfair) assumption that RR made it green and pink because blue and pink would be too obvious, but that his intention was obviously to reinforce the gender binary by using two distinctly gendered colors for a character with two distinct genders. Of course, they did not phrase it so delicately. No offense to whoever made that post, but I disagree.

Although that may have had to do with it, there's other things to consider. One of them is color symbolism. And oh. OH. I ADORE symbolism— especially flower/plant symbolism (Language of the Flowers and all that jazz), seasonal symbolism (there's a reason that evermore is my second favorite Taylor Swift album), and color symbolism.

GREEN

Let's talk about green first. Green can symbolize a lot of different things, and there are a few that can be applied to Alex's character. The most obvious thing that green often represents is jealousy— hence the expression "green with envy." But envy is not really one of Alex's character traits. Feel free to argue with me if you think that Alex is significantly envious. Just because I couldn't think of substantial textual evidence for it does not mean that there isn't any.

One of the traits that Alex does have is wealth. Green is the color of American currency, and since both RR and Alex are American, it's safe to take an American lens while looking at this color. Alex's socioeconomic background effects her in a big way. I mentioned in a previous post that I think that Alex's fatal flaw is her sense of entitlement. That kind of entitlement is a quality not exclusive to but common among the upper class. However, her distance from her wealthy background enhances the sense of irony in the story, which is a VERY big thing that we NEVER talk about within the fandom.

This is kind of a little thing, but it's worth noting that when it comes to Valhalla and everything, Alex is "green"— as in new and inexperienced.

The color green also emphasizes Alex's connection with nature. This is one of the parts of Alex's character that the fandom consistently underplays, which is an absolute shame. I don't think I have to explain why the color green is associated with all things natural. Alex's association with nature provides a few key things to her character:

It makes her a more well-rounded character. Another criticism of Alex I believe is totally unfounded is that "being genderfluid is her only personality trait because it influences her philosophy on pottery, which is her only hobby." I'm probably going to make another post in, like, a few minutes about why I find that argument a little silly, but the primary problem is that pottery is not Alex's only hobby. She also loves camping, hiking, and ice wall climbing (I bet y'all forgot about that last one!)

It gives her a connection with Magnus. I mentioned in a previous post that Magnus and Alex are foils, but I neglected to bring up why that also makes for very good chemistry between them. Of course, yes, they have different goals and philosophy, which is what makes them foils in the first place. But foil relationships function best when the characters also share some traits. As it turns out, Alex and Magnus share several hobbies, and one of them is a mutual love for nature. This is a very unexplored thing in fics. Start doing it more plz.

Finally, and this one's kind of minor, but the Alex's green gives her a connection to Natalie. I know, whenever Alex and Natalie are compared, either in canon or in fandom, everybody kind goes "eww. Oedipus complex." Which is very fair and true. But they really do have a lot of similarites. The green of Alex's hair and clothes connects her to the green of Natalie's eyes. It's worth saying, too, that Alex has one amber eye— and amber is pretty close to dirty blonde, like Natalie's hair.

If I had more faith in RR, I might bring up the concept of intextuality and how Alex wearing green is an allusion to The Great Gatsby and how Alex is elusive to Magnus, just like Daisy is to Gatsby. But I don't.

PINK

To give credit to the person who wrote the post I mentioned at the beginning of this spiel, I do believe that part of the reason pink was used was to support femininity. Please keep in mind that Alex dresses in an androgynous way— not that there is an actually "gendered" way to dress, since gender as we perceive it is mostly made up. But Alex's existence as a transfemme person (which I will maintain until my dying day) means that pink has a certain significance to her. A lot of AMAB people embrace traditionally feminine things because if they don't, they will not be accepted as genuine women or genuine nonbinary folks, since masculine dress is unisex and kind of the default. So Alex wearing pink probably had something to do with her gender, yes. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, and it's certainly not an unrealistic thing.

Speaking of Alex's gender in relation to the color pink, let's talk about pink's use as a queer rights symbol. Alex was RR's first character to be introduced as a queer character from the start. This was not an insignificant thing, especially in the year of our Lord 2016 (which, despite popular belief, seriously had an entirely different landscape of queer rep. Though it's commonplace now to include genderqueer characters, it was exceptional at the time— especially by such an accomplished and mainstream children's author.).

Let's go back in time to Nazi Germany. Some of you might know this, but for those of you don't this transition must seem jarring. I swear there's a point. In addition to Jews, Romani individuals, people with disabilities, and Poles (among others), gay men were victimized by the Nazis. If you're wondering why lesbians weren't persecuted, it's because the Nazis didn't see them as a serious political threat, or as a threat to the perpetuation of the Aryan race since they assumed gay women could be forcefully impregnated if need be. Yeah, ew. Anyway, much like the Star of David being used to mark Jewish people, gay men were forced into concentration camps and forced to wear a pink triangle. Years later, after the gay population somewhat recovered, the pink triangle was reclaimed and used as a symbol for gay men. Some people who were not gay men used it, too, but that's somewhat controversial since it wasn't their symbol to reclaim. When the first pride flag was created, it had a pink stripe at the top to signify sex (this was later dropped so flags could be more easily produced). The pink triangle (inverted) was used during the AIDs epidemic with the caption "Silence=Death."

My point is that this is a very important color to queer folks. Having one of the first genderfluid characters in kid's lit wear pink...... I mean, it makes sense.

The last and final thing that pink represents, in this context and in general, is innocence. Granted, this kind of connects to feminitity since women (especially white women) are often infantalized and seen as innocent— which is another issue. In any case, the use of pink to represent innocence in Alex's dress is ironic. Alex has been robbed of her childhood innocence, first by her abusive parents, then by her life on the streets, and then by her eventual death at age sixteen. But then she actually regains her innocence. At the beginning of the—

Hold on. I just had a revelation. I'll make a post about it soon.

At the beginning of SotD, Alex is acting a little childish. The most obvious example is him jumping on Randolph's bed to "make noise." Alex's life is stable and relatively healthy for the first time in the years, and she experiences something that a lot of queer folks experience: a re-emergence of childhood at a late stage.

I imagine you didn't expect a post this long. I either make essay responses to asks or I add on one sentence and post it. Oops. Anyway, I believe the mcga fandom can be more creative than calling Alex a watermelon. Here are some other (kinda romantic) pink-and-green alternatives:

Roses

Dragonfruit

Grapefruit

Cherry blossom trees

#mcga #magnus chase #alex fierro #mcatgoa #magnus chase and the gods of asgard #sorry for the long response lol #thanks for the ask! I had a go of it!

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deadmandairyland · 3 years

Photo

Hi! I’m here to bring you yet another Danganronpa tier list: the sexuality tier list, which you can find here.

Now I’m going to be honest here: I don’t really have any LGBT headcanons. It’s just not really something I focus on much when it comes to fandoms. Instead I usually just focus on ships, and as a result from that I tend to present a lot of characters as LGBT in fanfictions and posts I’ve made or reblogged. In other words, a massive chunk of my “headcanons” here are a direct result of shipping (as well as information I’ve picked up from the games themselves). That being said, it was interesting to actually think about this for once, so I’m kinda glad I did the tier list. And it gave me an excuse to bring back the rainbow color scheme I usually put in my tier lists for aesthetic reasons.

The original tier list had Straight at the top, but I moved it to the bottom for two reasons. One, this is Tumblr and that’s not what you’re here for. Two, I gave it a neutral color, and having a gray section next to a white section (i.e. the title of the list) like that looked bad to me. I definitely prefer this setup just on aesthetic alone.

Because this is largely based on ships, I feel it needs to be said that representation does not factor into this chart in any way. I know it probably looks bad that the only character in the Lesbian category is one of my least favorite (though NOT hated or even disliked, I should point out) characters in the main series. That has nothing to do with the fact that she’s a lesbian. She’s just a jerk, and usually not in a way that’s at least entertaining enough for me to like her.

Also keep in mind that this is just the main cast of the main series games. If you were to include characters from the DR3 anime, UDG, or the spin-offs, the Gay, Lesbian, and Ace categories would get more rep, certainly. Think Juzo, Yui, Takemichi, that gay guy with the trumpet, etc.

With that said, let’s go through the list:

Gay

Not gonna lie, one of the reasons why Rantaro is here (and not in Ace) is because of ships. Though I do sometimes ship him with girls, canon suggests he’s not interested in dating girls, and most fans seem to headcanon him as either gay or ace because of this, so I respected that. That being said, I also acknowledge he’s a very popular character in mlm ships, and at the time I was putting this together I hadn’t gotten to Taka yet so the Gay tier was still empty, and Byakuya was already sitting in Ace, so all of that swayed me to putting Rantaro here instead of Ace.

Taka was much easier to place here. He strikes me as a closeted gay man who probably doesn’t even realize he is gay. “Hey, let’s all hang out in the bath, guys! Getting naked is essential to form bonds with your fellow man! No need to be ashamed, it’s tradition!"

Lesbian

Again, ships. I only ship Hiyoko with one other character, and as soon as I say that you already know who she is.

Bisexual (Male Preference)

Akane is mostly here to account for any wlw ships I may have of her (e.g. Hina, Sonia maybe). Obviously she has a thing with Nekomaru, so Male Preference.

Chiaki is here for the same reason as Akane. I’ve shipped her with characters like Sonia and Ibuki before, but she really digs Hajime.

Chihiro honestly could have been anywhere in the Bi and Pan sections, but I ultimately went with Male Preference because of ships, specifically the fact that outside of the more... R18 circles of the Interwebs Chihiro tends to be shipped with guys more often than girls. Also doesn’t hurt that my OTP is Naehiro. I mean, have you seen how often Chihiro blushes around Makoto? (There’s more to it than that, as I’ve covered in the past. I’m just trying to add more fuel to the fire.)

Himiko is probably one of the few characters that isn’t here mainly because of ships. I do think she has some attachment towards Tenko, but I also get “I’m uncomfortable around her” vibes from her, and there are moments where she seems to crush on Kokichi (of all people) so that’s why she’s here. Still very much bi, though.

Hina has a crush on Makoto and has a complex around wishing she was more feminine so she can attract boys. So why isn’t she in the Straight section? ...Because Sakura, duh. And Kyoko too. And any other wlw ship you can think of that might work with Hina.

Honestly if it wasn’t for Miu I probably would have considered putting Kokichi in Gay. Again, while shipping plays a big part of my choices here, much like with Rantaro I have no qualms with putting a character in a tier that contradicts any ships I might have with that character, if those ships aren’t something I’m super invested in. This is a very important distinction, because it’s why I let ships sway my hand for so many of these even if I am also okay with going “Just because I ship this doesn’t mean I headcanon it” as I did with Rantaro. And honestly Kokichi’s ship teasing with Himiko does come off as more trollish than a sign that he’s into her, but he really gets into his back-and-forth with Miu, in my personal opinion, and he gets into it far more often with her for that matter. It’s why it’s one of my favorite ships for both of them tbh, and it’s because I like the ship so much that I just can’t ignore it for this sexuality headcanon tier list.

Maki... is here because of ships (e.g. Kaede).

Sakura... is here because of ships (e.g. Hina). ...What, you were expecting me to put a guy in the example? Remember, she has a boyfriend in canon.

Sayaka... is here because of... NOT ships, but DRAT. Yes, really. (”We really got down and dirty, Naegi-kun.”)

Sonia... strikes me as someone who swings both ways. I can’t describe exactly why I feel that way, but yes.

Bisexual (No Preference)

Celeste wants a harem of vampire boys but shipping her with Kyoko is also very popular and honestly i feel like it would fit her character. She’s got a look that says “I could get any ass I want and I know it.”

Ibuki is decked out in blues and pinks, and also I ship her fairly evenly among both boys and girls. She just screams bi icon to me, more so than any other character in the series.

Junko is either bi with no preferences or pan. She is an equal opportunity heart-and-soul-breaker and lust-for-despair machine.

There is no Mukuro in this list, but honestly I would probably put her where I put Junko anyway.

Kaede... is here because of ships (e.g. Miu, Maki)

Honestly I had no idea where to put Kirumi, so I just randomly chose one that I wouldn’t regret later if I ever put more thought into who I shipped her with.

I’m pretty sure Nagito being bisexual has some degree of canon attached to it??? I think??? I’m not entirely sure tbh, but fuck it. I’m doing this for fun anyway, so this doesn’t really matter.

Shuichi, like all Danganronpa protags, is bi as fuck. I also find him to be more shippable with guys than the other two protags, so IMO he has no preference.

Toko might have a thing or two for pretty boys, but... Komaru, I mean, this isn’t exactly shocking, I don’t think. Probably was closeted before she met Komaru. I mean she did focus on Hina’s boobs a lot in DR1, let’s not forget.

Tsumugi, much like Kirumi, is here because I haven’t put much thought into her ships.

Bisexual (Female Preference)

Gundham has a thing with Sonia in canon, but I can see him being bi. So... yeah, ships again.

Hajime, like all Danganronpa protags, is bi as fuck. It’s just that his Chiaki and Mikan game is just too strong.

Hifumi might claim to only like 2D, but his interest in Chihiro both in human form and computer program form (and the fact that this didn’t go away after the gender reveal) places him here.

Kaito strikes me as a closeted bisexual. The kind that could start any given conversation with “I’m not gay, but...”

Kazuichi also strikes me as a closeted bisexual, only his “I’m not gay, but...” is rooted more in dumbass than it is in systematic homophobia.

Korekiyo... is here because of ships (e.g. Rantaro).

Kyoko is bi as fuck, and I can see her having a preference towards girls in particular. She gets shipped with girls a lot (e.g. Celeste, Hina, Yui, and even Junko and Mukuro), and when she is shipped with boys it’s usually just pretty boys (e.g. Makoto, Byakuya, Ryota, Shuichi, and, depending on your interpretation, Chihiro). Also note that aside from Makoto and maybe Byakuya, Kyoko’s girl ships are far more popular than her boy ships. Just something I’ve noticed over the years.

Leon... is here because of ships (e.g. Chihiro).

Mahiru is here because I’m pretty sure she has a thing for Hajime in her FTEs, but obviously she tends to get shipped with girls more often (especially Hiyoko), and I agree.

Makoto, like all Danganronpa protags, is bi as fuck. It’s just that his Kyoko, Hina, Sayaka, and Mukuro game is just too strong.

Mikan may be interested in Hajime somewhat, but her obsession with Junko cannot be ignored, no matter how much some of you may want to.

Mondo is another character that strikes me as a closeted bisexual. He is said to strike out all the time with girls, so I do think he’s attracted to women. And I do get some vibes that he’s attracted to Chihiro pre-reveal. And if circumstances had been different, I imagine he probably still would have been post-reveal. But obviously it’s his bond with Taka that I feel cements his sexuality in, at the very least, an mlm category.

Tenko... is here NOT because of ships, but because I’m pretty sure she’s at least sort of interested in Shuichi because of some canon thing... and also I don’t want to put her in Lesbian just because it feels like I’d be stereotyping the Lesbian category if I do that. If we were to compare her to the character that I did put in Lesbian, Hiyoko doesn’t treat people like shit because they’re men, she’s an equal-opportunity asshole. Still not the best representation for lesbians by a long shot, but at least Hiyoko doesn’t follow the stereotype of a man-hating lesbian. She’s just like that, and that’s okay. But putting Tenko there, especially if she’s shown some degree of interest in a male character at some point in the game, just rubs me the wrong way personally, because it would feel like I’m ignoring canon just to stereotype her. But that’s just a personal hang up of mine. No disrespect intended toward anyone who genuinely feels that Tenko is a lesbian. Maybe you see something there that I don’t, and that’s perfectly fine.

Pansexual

I don’t remember exactly how her FTEs went, so I’m not going to get into that, but Angie just comes off as pan to me, like gender doesn’t fit into the equation at all for her.

Gonta I can see as either pan or ace. I feel like he wouldn’t care about gender, and honestly the only reason I decided to put him in Pan rather than Ace is because of that scene with Miu.

Imposter is not only pan, they are currently OT3ing it up with Ibuki and Ryota as we speak, and that’s a fact.

Keebo... is mostly here because of ships. A lot of ships, actually. Mostly male ships (Kokichi, Shuichi, Kazuichi, and, depending on your interpretation, Chihiro) but there’s also Miu to consider. And the Miu game is SO strong that I put him in Pan instead of, say, Male Preference.

Just gonna lump them together because I have the same thing to say about both of them: Miu and Teruteru would **** anything that walks. What did I censor? Well, I’m doing the Nier: Automata thing, so you can put whatever you want in there and trust me, it would probably fit, for better or for worse.

Ace

I know this is an unpopular opinion, because Naegami, but I just don’t think Byakuya is interested in anyone, at least not in that way. He might be fascinated with how common people live, because it’s so foreign to him, but that’s about it.

Straight

Even though I do ship Fuyuhiko with some of the boys, his Peko game is so strong that honestly I can’t see him actually dating anyone aside from Peko outside of some very niche fanfiction.

Honestly, Hiro was another one that I was just like “I have no idea what to do with you.” I think maybe his team up with Kanon made me eventually choose to put him in Straight? I don’t remember. I clearly didn’t put much thought into Hiro.

I really only ship Nekomaru with Akane, so that’s why he’s here. I’m sure if I dive deep enough into my psyche I can pull an mlm ship with Nekomaru in it out of my ass, but like Rantaro that wouldn’t be significant enough to change anything.

Peko is in the same boat as Fuyuhiko. I have shipped her with girls before, but her Fuyuhiko game is just too strong.

Ryoma had a girlfriend once, and as far as I can remember he didn’t really seem interested in anybody in the game, so that’s all I have to go off of for him.

-----

So there you have it. Explanations for literally all of them! Explanations that were definitely not pulled out of my ass as I was typing them, nope, certainly not. Definitely won’t be tagging all of them, but I may tag the ones with the longest entries. And like all the tier lists I’ve done, this was just for fun and honestly any opinion I have for any of these characters could change at a moment’s notice because my brain is fickle like that. Tried my best to make sure that every tier had at least one character in it, but I did so without trying to force characters in places that I personally did not believe they should go. I hope you all enjoyed my dive into this area of fandom that I rarely dive into (the LGBT headcanons, not the ships, obviously). It was a lot of fun, and hopefully it will stay fun and not result in angry anons blasting me for my opinions. I am grateful that this never seems to happen to me, but I’ve seen it happen to others and I know what Tumblr is capable of at its worst. These are just headcanons and a matter of personal opinion, and if you disagree with them, that’s perfectly okay. Your feelings and opinions are also valid.

#dangan ronpa #tier list #rantarou amami #kiyotaka ishimaru #hiyoko saionji #chihiro fujisaki #himiko yumeno #aoi asahina #kokichi ouma #kyouko kirigiri #mondo oowada #tenko chabashira #kiibo #miu iruma #teruteru hanamura #ended up tagging anyone who (at least in the editor) has four or more lines of text in their entry #or in hiyoko's case because i mention her a lot outside of her entry

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xaibaugrove · 3 years

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Addressing the Casual (and Direct) Biphobia in the Korrasami Community

So this will either get a lot of flak or fade into obscurity. I am a member of the Korrasami community who has not been here for nearly as long as the more notable members and I am not very active to say the least. But this platform gives me the ability to speak my mind and after letting this topic fester within me for as long as I’ve been in this community, I am going to speak my damn mind because this shit needs to be said.

The Backstory

I won’t bore anyone with my whole confused bisexual life story, because this isn’t about me. But just for some background here, I was a confused bisexual for my entire life until Korra and Asami basking in the light of the Spirit Portal made me see the actual light and recognize my sexuality. Which was a little crazy for me to realize that, yeah, there is a way to be attracted to men and still be attracted to women.

I saw so much of myself in Korra. She was super awkward around guys she thought were cute, she was buff, she was tough and sometimes she just blurted out all her deep seated feelings towards guys she just met and you know, I felt that. She also fell in love with her female best friend and I felt that, too. Naturally after rewatching the series as an adult, I wanted to see if there were others out there who appreciated this couple as much as I did.

The Issue

While I found a vast online community that had as much love for Korrasami as I did, I quickly found that there were a large majority of lesbian/WLW fans who didn’t have as much love for Korra and Asami’s very real attraction to Mako.

Take a look at the Korrasami AO3 tag. I’ve actually had someone tell me that no one who reads Korrasami fanfic wants to read anything featuring Korra or Asami with Mako. I’ve seen fics that have a timeline that starts with both women being toddlers growing up into adults without one single mention of them being attracted to boys or men at all, nonetheless attracted to Mako. And in the rare scenario that a relationship with Mako or any male is mentioned, then comes the frustrating storybeat that they either dated men because they were too shy/scared to approach each other (thus rendering the men as just things to do in the meantime) or worse yet, because they were CONFUSED OR CONFORMING TO SOCIAL/GENDER NORMS.

In the 3 or 4 years I’ve been part of the fandom, I’ve had actual conversations with lesbian friends who have found every way possible to wave away Korra and Asami’s attraction to Mako. Or even reacting in disgust to Makorra or Masami at every mention of it. Which is fair, if you’re a KA fan of course that’s an expected reaction to another ship involving your OTP but, to completely dismiss the importance of it...? There are those who would call those parts of the series “pointless” or “ridiculous”. It’s really disheartening to know that a lot of lesbian KA fans consider the queer rep in the series soured by the 2 seasons where they had to watch Korra and Asami, two bi women, be attracted to a man.

It was jarring to say the least, to have conversations with friends where I couldn’t bring up Korra or Asami’s relationships with Mako during discussions about their development without being shot down and having the relationships be dismissed. The reaction to Korra and Asami’s attraction to men was so strong that I even started to feel ashamed about how “frivolous” or “trivial” my own attraction to men was perceived.

Not too long ago, I saw a meme on Reddit that sent me over the edge and inspired me to write this post. The user has since deleted the post, but I remember it very vividly, only because I’ve seen some version of it many times before. The meme basically referred to how frustrated the viewer had been after being told that TLOK had great queer rep, but feeling as though they were cheated having to watch them “fuck around with guys for 2 seasons” (their words), only to be saved at the end, when Korra and Asami finally get together.

When I saw it, I was immediately fuming. Because at that point, I had seen this shit so much, it hurt more than anything else. And the pain mixed with the rage but...I think the pain still comes through in my reply to the post.

I’ve seen sooo much content and sooo many posts or comments where a user asks whether TLOK has good LGBTQ+ rep, only to have someone reply that it’s a letdown because the queer rep doesn’t happen until the finale. Another all too common discussion I’ve seen is where fans call Korra and Asam’s bisexuality into question. One example

I understand that it sucks that we didn’t get more romantic interactions between the two women during the show for external reasons outside the creators’ control. I wish there had been a kiss here, more blushes there. But the crushes on Mako were real. And their interest in each other, albeit all too short in its depiction, is also real. And that means something to me, a bisexual woman. To say the rep is a letdown is...sad. Because Korra is featured in every episode starting from the first and Asami is featured in every ep from the 4th or 5th episode. And they’re both wonderfully, beautifully bisexual. Seeing that mattered to me.

So, to anyone who is a lesbian or WLW and a Korrasami fan and you’re reading this post and feel attacked, just stop instead to examine your language within the fandom. I understand you want “pure” WLW content or whatever... but just stop making me feel ashamed for being a wlw who is also attracted to men... and please stop erasing that attraction from two of the few bisexual characters I have that are like me... I’m tired, so tired of having to defend my attraction to both sexes with people outside the LGBTQ+ community and those within it.

#don't even get me started on the other aspect of bi erasure in the community #such as...labeling Korra and Asami as lesbians....#that's a story for another post #korra #asami sato #korrasami #avatar: tlok #the legend of korra #tlok #bisexual awareness #bisexual #bi representation #wlw #bi erasure #lgbtq+#lgbtqia representation #discourse

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une-fille-ou-deux · 3 years

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Let’s talk about Bette’s comment about Tom and Alice (ep206)

Bette says that she doesn’t want to imagine them having sex. Because Tom is *ominous music* a man. I know (very well, believe me) that this is a commonly held sentiment, but I don’t understand why a tv show, which is written and rewritten and edited so many times, makes this choice.

It’s not that I’m in favour of characters with perfect politics. I’m honestly quite annoyed by the leap between the OG L word and Gen Q, because suddenly these characters are magically no longer transphobic and racist. I think it’s much more interesting to actually write such a change into the storyline.

Bisexuality seems to be an exception - apart from the general lack of bi rep on this show, which I still think is *a choice* - since such a comment would never be considered acceptable if Bette had made it about a situation involving a trans character.

The problem is that TLW is unable to represent bisexuality in any other way than to frame it through a lesbian lens. The common (non-)argument, is “well it’s called the L word”. But it’s not like there aren’t a ton of bi women who watch this show. And we get one (fucking *one*) bisexual women as representation (since the others - insofar there were even meaningfully bisexual on screen - were left in season 1) and *still* we have to listen to an unchallenged biphobic comment by one of the most popular characters.

The visual representation of bisexuality (i.e. sex with a man) needs to be countered with a disgusted comment by a lesbian, otherwise it will no longer be relatable to lesbians? If in your representation of bisexuality bisexuals are less important than how lesbians feel about who they fuck - and therefore need to be framed by these feelings - just don’t bother.

(And it’s not as if the fandom of this show isn’t already wildly biphobic, either explicitly, or by “just preferring Alice with a woman” as if it’s about them. They’ll be fine without the help from the show itself.)

#the l word generation q #tlwgq #alice pieszecki #tom maultsby #bisexuality #biphobia #bisexual representation #bette porter #alice x tom #excuse the rant #i am mad #why do i even want this show to be better ugh #if you want to be pissed at me for this post don't do it anonymously #i own my words so should you

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novelconcepts · 3 years

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yesterday i saw the discourse about the “queerbaiting” or “bury your gay” you had with some anons and yes, if i may say people — especially who’re watching bly now — don’t catch the metaphors behind the ghosts in the show. i mean, maybe i didn’t see myself people calling it a queerbaiting (mostly I’ve seen them talking about the bury your gay) but i sure saw people saying that dani and jamie were just a privileged couple, and they are bad representation .. and believe me this so hilarious, the proposal scene hint us how the 80s/90s where legal marriage wasn’t a thing were difficult ages for many gay/lesbians, or the scene in the flower shop where dani look outside the window for being sure no one watch them kissing, and mostly important: i think people don’t understand the role eddie’s, especially in his ghost form, has as the dani’s comphet that still haunt her, aside the guilty for his death. some people maybe watch it and didn’t catch how jamie in her monologue explain very well how her life was hard, it’s true we didn’t get many of her life before bly but because the whole show is around the “open to interpretation” we can assume some things, put aside that Amelia in cosycon gave us other “behind the scenes” of her character’s life before the manor. So people either saw them as queerbaiting because they don’t see the metaphor, also i think they think too much about the fact they doesn’t say explicitly they are lesbians, but in this show metaphors are something that are enough for understanding the plot, also mike and his crew tried to not focus too much into this things, trying to give characters that they have a personality aside their sexuality.

I really think people nowadays talk about in too easy way about the queerbaiting or the bury your gays, we have to be more careful about it and try to not see bad representation just because the characters don’t hate everyone around them <\3

Yeah, I think people slide too easily toward lumping everything that doesn’t personally work for them into toxic tropes, and that’s...more than a little disheartening, particularly for queer creators who want to tell complex human stories that don’t always come out shiny. I haven’t seen nearly this level of discourse with Bly, because I tend to stick to my corner of the internet, but I find myself thinking primarily of Happiest Season--a queer movie made by a huge number of queer people that was then torn to shreds by the community because it wasn’t what they expected/wanted to see. Not every piece of media is going to work for everyone, certainly, but the inclination to say “this didn’t do what I would have done, and therefore it is Bad” is really upsetting. And I think it’s dissuading a lot of creators from telling the stories they need to tell, because they just don’t have the energy to deal with the fallout.

But the idea that Dani and Jamie are a privileged couple is...interesting. Privileged in terms of being two white women, and therefore benefitting from that element, absolutely--the most viable critiques I’ve seen of the show are all based around its treatment of POC, and that’s very fair. But I think there’s also a difference between “privileged” and “more privileged than they could be”, and they fall into the latter camp. They’re still queer women in 1987, they’re still not safe shouting their love from the rooftops, and though the show was really kind in its refusal to give bigots a voice within its framework...the timeframe is still very intentional. Plus, Jamie is a child of trauma and abuse, Dani spends much of the show incredibly caged by comphet and societal expectation, and both are working more blue collar jobs taking care of wealthy kids. I really fail to see how they’d qualify as bad rep just because the show wasn’t willing to give a megaphone to homophobia--it feels to me like the perspective of people who think you can’t tell a gay story without a traumatic coming-out lens. Which, personally, I’m over. I want more stories that prioritize queerness and the normalizing of such in various genres. I’m not interested in a constant swell of “well, now I’m gonna get disowned or abused on-camera, and that’s how you know this isn’t easy.” I want more shows that don’t feel the need to write an essay on what it means to be gay, that just...show it as a normal, human part of living. That feels like the definition of good rep, from where I’m standing.

#ask #the haunting of bly manor spoilers #the haunting of meta #honestly not to open this can of worms again #but...just really bewildered at the idea that 'we didn't see them Suffer enough for being gay so it's bad rep'#i'd really like to think we're past that?#i want queer stories that feel human. where the characters feel fully realized. sometimes that's gonna look messy #sometimes it won't involve saying the words out loud #i'm fine with that. i'm not fine with calling everything that isn't universally perfect bad rep/queerbaiting/etc #makes me grumpy #anyway. gonna shift my brain to a new topic now but uh. woooo. folks are wild #Anonymous

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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(WLW anon) I really don’t like the “bad rep is better then none at all”. I hate that. We should want good rep, because bad rep has been used time and time again by homophobes as to say we shouldn’t get representation. To me it’s not “gay can have the same flaws as het”, it’s “fix the flaws in the het”. Also I know Renora being independent was a good, I was just saying in comparison BB. Also, yes, they were separated, but also didn’t stop thinking about each other. Especially bad with Yang.

Indulge me for a moment because I want to take a trip down memory lane and list some—just some—of the queer rep that has been important to me over the years:

Ellen comes out both as herself and as her character… years later, she’s a hated millionaire who is criticized for how she treats her staff

The wildly influential Buffy gives us two women entering a loving relationship… except then Tara is killed off, Willow goes evil for a time, and Buffy comes under fire for Joss Whedon’s everything

The beloved and respectable headmaster of one of the most popular book series ever published is revealed to be gay… except it doesn’t count because it wasn’t in the text and now all of Harry Potter is cancelled because JKR is transphobic

Kurt is an unambiguously gay teen in a hugely popular TV series, acting as one of the first overt representations a generation has seen… except he’s way too stereotypical and Glee is a joke now

Orange is the New Black gives us a number of queer women, including one of our first trans characters… but isn’t it problematic that they’re all criminals?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine hosts an out gay captain and gives us a bisexual coming out story that resonated with many, myself included… except now we’re supposed to hate all the characters on principle because they’re cops

Korra and Asami walk off into the spiritual sunset together… but they never kiss or anything, so that doesn’t count either

Steven Universe gives us a queer relationship and a wedding… but it’s an issue that this is just a kid’s show and, really, does it count when the rep is embodied by space rocks whose entire species only creates a single gender? Feels like a cop-out

Same with Good Omens. Yeah, Crowley and Aziraphale clearly love each other… but you never see them kiss or declare their intentions. It’s great ace rep though! Unless you want to level the criticism that asexual characters are always nonhuman

A character intended to be a minor guest becomes a show staple and eventually declares his love for one of the two main characters… except then Castiel immediately dies, Dean doesn’t respond, and they never meet on screen again

I finished Queen’s Gambit the other day and the main character had a one-night stand with a woman! … but everyone is talking about how bisexuality is used to represent her lowest point, so that’s bad too

I could go on for literal pages. Some of these arguments I agree with (Dumbledore), others I’ve pushed back against quite strongly (Crowley and Aziraphale), but all of them are valid criticisms depending on what part of the queer community you’re in and what your expectations are. My point here is that it’s all “bad rep.” I mean that seriously. If anyone reading this is scrambling for the comment section to say why [insert media title here] is actually fantastic rep, I guarantee that someone disagrees. Or if they don’t, give it some time. Just wait until the characterization becomes offensively outdated, or another part of the story ruins the relationship, or it comes out that the author did something truly horrific, or the terminology changes and it’s labeled as “problematic” now… just wait. At some point, any rep we feel is good rep now will be criticized, cancelled, and dragged through the mud. The rep that I personally haven’t seen much push-back against—like the beloved Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who, or Schitts Creek that just won a ton of awards—is wrapped up in the criticism, “So it’s all just about able-bodied, cis, (mostly) white dudes, huh? :/” Even the argument that queer characters need to be written by queer authors doesn’t hold up. I absolutely adored Sense8. “Wow, a gay main character in a loving relationship with another gay man, both of whom enter a loving poly relationship with a woman, another lesbian trans main character who marries the love of her life on screen, an entire cast arguably queer due to them sharing orgy scenes centered around the emotional intimacy they share, everyone survives, and this was written by two trans women! Great, right?” Well, not according to the wealth of opinions explaining how Sense8 is horrible rep, actually. Every piece of rep we’ve got is either currently flawed or will become flawed in the future.

So what do we do with that?

That’s where my “I’d rather have bad rep than no rep at all” comes in. For me, that’s not waving the white flag. That’s not an oath that I won’t expect better rep in the future (I do) or that I won’t criticize the rep we get (BOY DO I), but rather just an acknowledgement of reality. The vast majority—if not the entirety—of rep is “bad rep” in one way or another, but I’d still rather have it than nothing at all. Because I’ve lived just long enough and studied media just enough to know what nothing looked like. It was watching all queer characters meet untimely deaths. Before that it was watching queer characters be derided and treated as jokes. Before that it was nothing but coding, where queer characters didn’t exist except in our own headcanons and interpretations. Obviously “bad rep” covers a very large range of issues and “They haven’t even confirmed this relationship yet” is a bigger issue than “This queer character embodies one or two, mild stereotypes,” but ultimately I’d take any of it over nothing at all. And enjoying what we’ve currently got doesn’t mean I’m willing to settle for it indefinitely.

To use an iffy analogy, imagine there’s a factory. This factory makes plates. So. Many. Plates. Big plates, small plates, plain plates, decorative plates, plates for every possible occasion in your life—and everyone with a steak for dinner is pleased as punch. You though? You’ve got soup. You need a bowl. Your entire life you’ve been struggling to eat your soup off a plate (it doesn’t work) and listening to friends and family claim that the plate with a slightly raised edge could be a bowl if you squint (it’s not). To say it’s frustrating is an understatement.

But then, one day, the factory starts producing bowls too. Hurray! Except as soon as you get your hands on one, you’re told you really shouldn’t be using it, let alone praising it. Look at the state of that bowl! It’s cracked right down the middle, ugly as hell, shoddily made all around… you’re not really going to settle for that, are you? And no, you obviously still want the factory to produce better bowls, but at the same time, this is a bowl. You’ve never gotten one before and you can finally enjoy your meal, even if the soup leaks at times. Sometimes a lot. But you’re still feeling better about your meal than you ever have before. And what you then begin to realize is that lots of the plates are a mess too. They also have cracks, they’re also ugly, many are also shoddily made. The difference is that the factory is producing so many plates at such a rapid pace that every steak eater is able to get by. One plate breaks completely? You’ve got a thousand fallbacks. Don’t like the look of this one? A thousand other options. You disagree about what “shoddily made” means? Luckily there are enough plates that everyone can find what they prefer! But the bowls… there’s only a few. Some are really expensive. Others are only available for a limited time before they suddenly disappear. Your bowl breaks and you have to wait months, years sometimes, to get another one. You’re constantly told to go buy this one obscure bowl no one else has heard about and yeah, you like it... but you’d also like to buy one of the bowls everyone is already enjoying. You find yourself looking at the plates and thinking, “I’d like that. I’d like to have so many options that the flaws, while still a problem, are much more bearable.” You’re still going to demand that the factory get its shit together, you’re still going to (rightly) complain about the awful quality of your bowl… but it’s still nice to have a bowl, period. There are still things you like about it, even if it’s a mess: the color, the size, the beauty of the shape of it. Its potential. You’re still pleased you have something to enjoy and that helps serve the need you’re looking to fill, even if that something is imperfect.

That’s “bad rep is better than no rep.” To bring this very long response back to Blake/Yang, I don’t think their problems negate their benefits. Is their relationship currently non-canonical and filled with a number of writing issues everyone has a right to be angry about? Yup. I express that anger a great deal. Are they still half of a team on a very popular show that is (presumably) set to be canonized as queer? Yup. I’d much rather live in a world where big shows like RWBY try to include queer rep and fail in a multitude of ways—with the expectation and hope that they’ll continue to improve—rather than in a world where authors a) don’t care or b) are too scared to try. Because that’s where a “good rep or no rep” stance leads. The danger isn’t homophobes because they’re, well, homophobes. It doesn’t matter if the rep is good or not, they hate it on principle. But if queer authors writing for other queer identities, or allies writing queer identities, or even queer authors writing their own experiences (like in Sense8) continually come under non-stop fire for their attempts… there’s a good chance that many people won’t ever try. We’re already seeing that here on tumblr with young authors admitting that they wouldn’t touch [insert topic here] with a ten-foot pole because just look at what happens when you get it wrong. And authors will get things wrong because authors are fallible people forever unlearning their own ignorance. So though it might sound strange coming from a blog that has turned into such a RWBY critical space, I am glad that RWBY’s queer rep exists, despite all the frustrations that I share about it. I think a RWBY with various types of “bad” queer rep is better than a RWBY with no queer rep at all, particularly when “bad” or “good” is so intensely subjective. There’s a middle ground between passively accepting whatever we’re given, and tearing into rep with such ferocity that we end up rejecting it all. There’s a space where we can be critical of rep and embrace the parts that work for us, simultaneously.

I hope and expect the het rep will get better too, but… that’s never going to happen instantly. To quote RWBY, there’s no magic wand we can wave to fix all our problems. Rather, it will take slow, plodding, meandering, lifetimes’ worth of work to see that change occur and I personally don’t want to spend the one life I have waiting for that perfect rep to show up. Because it’s unlikely that it will. While we work, I’d rather find the good in what rep we’ve already got.

#rwby #queer #mymetas #Anonymous

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strangertheory · 3 years

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I’ve heard so many different opinions on the Duffer Brothers. On one hand, I see the cinematic parallels point to a queer awakening for Byler and I see how their employees are supportive of the LGBTQ+ community (stranger writers), but I also hear people say how Maya had to “beg” them to make Robin a lesbian, and how they are “queer baiting” us, or that they are homophobic. It’s so confusing and conflicting to hear people refer to the Duffers as “homophobic” because it puts a damper in my confidence when it comes to Byler, even though I believe in it 100%. The way they are handling the relationship between Will and Mike seems like it could be a wonderful case of Good Queer Representation, and when you add Robin to that mix, it would be even better and make ST a show with healthy queer rep that I think we need more of. But they could easily queerbait us and chase popularity and comfort, and take the easy way out by making it one sided. They have so much power in their hands, and I am not sure if they’ve ever made it explicitly clear what their stance is on LGBTQ+ but I’ve heard some rumors of them being misogynistic on set, and it definitely makes me nervous. I’m so tired of being queer baited.

As with anyone famous that I am only familiar with through social media and PR and tabloid news: I have very little reliable insight into their personal ideologies. I treat most of what you've described as gossip and hear-say and as the variety of information that comes from tabloids and news sources that prioritize clickbait, controversy, and dishing out rumors about celebrities in order to increase the number of times their story is re-shared and engaged with on social media. I suspect that much of what you may have heard is embellished by unreliable fandom gossip as well.

Even if Maya used the phrase "begged" herself (I'm unsure — I don't have a source on hand, but that's irrelevant to my next point) the context of that is not inherently a sign that they are homophobic and could very easily be related to their originally different plans for Robin's character arc.

I have no idea what any of the cast and crew truly think on any given issue, and I think fans should remember that they don't truly "know" any of these celebrities either.

I do know, however, that the first season of Stranger Things features multiple moments in which homophobic characters are presented as the antagonists and characterized as clearly villainous: Lonnie is written as a deeply dislikeable character, as are Troy and James when they mock Will and then Mike (one of our obvious main heros in the story) shoves Troy to the gym floor in response to his bigotry. Neil Hargrove is also characterized as an abusive father figure who hurls homophobic slurs at Billy.

Consistently and regardless of whatever any individual involved in the creation of Stranger Things may think: the clearly written stance within the Stranger Things universe is that homophobia is offensive, villainous, and wrong. Additionally, as you mentioned in your Ask, I believe there is incredibly strong evidence that Mike having eventual romantic interest in Will has been foreshadowed in a variety of narrative ways in every single season thus far.

Regardless of what anyone involved behind the scenes thinks, the canon story itself has been very consistently pro-lgbtqa+ in both its text and subtext and combined with the consistent pro-lgbtqa+ messages from the official writers' room Twitter account I see no reason to fear that the team behind the important decisions in the making and promotion of the show is queerbaiting.

Yes, queerbaiting still happens far too often in popular media. But I think we do a disservice to not only ourselves but also to production teams that are working on unfinished series and who still might be planning to reveal plot twists to us in future seasons if we start treating them as though they have already failed us when the story is incomplete. I have seen fans literally cursing at creators of unfinished shows on social media and accusing them of queerbaiting rather than respecting that queerbaiting is, by definition, when a story does not deliver on intentional build-up and foreshadowing by the stories' conclusion.

Too many fans not only in this fandom but also in other fandoms do not understand the definition of queerbaiting. If a story reveals that two characters were in love or that a character is queer by the end of the series after a lot of subtext is established in the story prior to the big reveal: that is not queerbaiting, that is called foreshadowing.

I respect and empathize with the anxiety that some fans in the community have but I hope that they remember that the story isn't over yet and that not everything you hear in pop culture "news" or in the fan community rumor mill is always as trustworthy as you might think it is.

I hope that gives you some comfort. 😊

#byler #stranger things #stranger things theories

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freyfall · 4 years

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Hey sorry to bother, but i don't thing I've really seen any sexism in the fandom? I might have just missed it, but would you be willing to elaborate on it a bit? You don't have to if you don't wanna

CHOKES

I’ll elaborate under a cut because a lot of the sexism I see is rooted in the ns/fw side of the fandom. I’ll be talking explicitly so don’t click if you’re not prepared for a conversation about sex and ectoplasmic genital shit. Also... it’s long.

God, where do I even start? This post covers a lot of the base issues with the fandom, though most of what OP said had to do with queerphobia. The issue with writers and magic genitalia in the fandom boils down to the fact that so often - so often - I click on a fic to read and heteronormativity slaps me in the face. One dominant (male-identifying) partner with male genitalia, one submissive (male-identifying) partner with female genitalia. And okay, I get it, some couples are like that. It’s not bad to write something like that as long as it doesn’t rely on sexism or queerphobia to explain away the choices. But then it’s... every fic. Every. Fic. I click on.

Actually, I’ll give you some numbers! I’m going to look at the UTMV kinktober fics I’m keeping up with and see what kind of ratios there are. I won’t name them out of politeness, but here we go. Out of 4 Kinktober 2020 series on A03 with, so far, 23 or 24 chapters each, here’s how the gender and sex of the characters play out:

In terms of biological sex, the majority were male/female* with two partners, making up almost half of the fics read (42 out of 94). Out of said fics, 35 had a dominant** male and submissive female dynamic, 4 had a dominant female and submissive male dynamic, and 3 were unclear or there was no such dynamic. Only one out of the 42 fics had the female character identify as a woman. (Furthermore, she was genderbent.)

The runner-up was the ‘other’ category, which encompassed the following: no genitals present, only one set of genitals present, odd genitalia (such as tentacles), or unspecified. This category made up 26 out of the 94 fics. Of the 26, 20 of them fell into the ‘one set of genitals’ category, with 14 male and 6 female. The male fics were split evenly between dominant and submissive males, and the females were all written as submissive.

None of the other categories were nearly as popular, with the next one down the line only having 9 fics out of the 94. This category was male/male with two partners. The next one, male/male/female with three partners, had 8. Of the 8 fics, all of them had dominant male and submissive female dynamics.

The female/female with two partners category only had 3. Only one of the three fics portrayed a lesbian relationship where both characters identified as women.

The other categories were as follows: m/m/m with three partners, m/m/m/f with four partners, m/m/m/m with four partners, m/m/f/f with four partners, m/m/m/m/f with five partners, and m/m/m/f/f with five partners. These categories only had 1 fic each. Each and every fic with a female partner had the female partners playing submissive roles.

It’s important to note that out of the entire roster of fics, there were 3 women. One of them was a genderbent character in a m/f fic, and the other two were in a lesbian f/f fic. Why the lack of women? Why constantly portray those with female genitals as men?

Going back to the post I linked at the very beginning, I do want to cover my bases - I understand that male characters with biologically female genitals and sex characteristics can be a hugely needed source of rep for transgender people, especially those who are transmasculine. As a transmasculine person myself, it’s important to me that male characters with female bodies exist. Having a casual environment where men can have whatever genitals they want is, in theory, rather progressive. However, three things:

Never in all my time in this fandom have I ever seen one of these characters stated explicitly as transgender. None of the fics in the study above did, either.

In the UTMV, when writing skeletons with magical genitals, having male or female genitalia is seen as a choice. It erases the need for transgender characters. It erases transgender narratives that deal with transition, discomfort, coming out, and dysphoria. If you can pick whatever kind of body you want, why would there be a need for being trans? There’s no easy way to determine a ‘male’ or ‘female’ skeleton, erasing the concept of gender assigned at birth and erasing the struggles that trans people may face.

None of the characters have bodies that might align more closely with transgender folks who medically transition. No top surgery scars, no bottom growth. No breast tissue growth on male bodies, nothing. Of course, why would that exist in the first place? Magic erases the need to portray bodies with quote-on-quote ‘imperfections.’ None of the bodies portrayed even step a toe out of the cisgender box - such as perhaps portraying female genitals with a flat chest or male genitals with breasts. None of that was found in the study, and I don’t recall fics like that outside of the study, either.

So clearly, most if not all authors are not attempting to portray any sort of transgender character when writing them this way - which begs the question, why write men with female bodies?

While I was taking these statistics, I had a conversation with my partner in which they said something that applies here:

“[Every AU character] being Sans is a problem on its own, but when you have the power to make whatever character a woman, how you approach that says a lot. What people do is that they give a male character female parts and it’s only for sexual purposes. So like, the entire existence of [the female body] in the UTMV serves only for sex and that’s just kind of not good.”

Keeping this quote in mind, the short answer to the question I posed above is this: sexism. In this fandom, the female body, femininity, and being a woman in and of itself is objectified, hyper-sexualized, and exoticized... in that order, respectively. I’m not just using these as buzzwords, I promise you.

The female body is objectified. The same as the quote above, female bodies aren’t seen as something that someone will just have in a non-sexual context. After reading 94 smutfics, their treatment of the female body tends to start looking the same. The female body is for sex. That’s it. Giving or showing a character with breasts, even clothed, is seen as the display of a sexual object, even though breasts are visible on (cis) women in everyday scenarios. In sexual scenarios, the female body is never portrayed realistically, either. Female arousal and preparing the female body for sex - compared to its counterpart, the male body - is wildly unrealistic. Yes, this is porn, and there’s bound to be realism issues, but in comparison, female sexuality is much more unrealistic.

Femininity is sexualized. Characters act feminine for sexual appeal... and only for sexual appeal. Because a character acts feminine, they’re more sexually appealing to their partner. Feminine clothing, such as dresses or skirts, are seen as sexual.

Being a woman, in and of itself, is exoticized. This isn’t even a staunchly NSFW issue. I’ve been asked if my male characters, explicitly stated to be bisexual, would have sex with a woman. My partner has received asks about ‘what would happen if (insert male character here) met a woman.’ Genderbends of male characters into female characters are seen as cringy, childish, or fanservicey by default. Women aren’t treated as a normal occurrence. When genderbends do happen and people like them, it’s often in a sexual way. “She’s so hot/sexy.” “Step on me, queen.”

It most likely doesn’t help that all of the popular AU characters in the fandom are men. It creates an environment where women are scarce and hardly represented, leading to unnatural assumptions about them.

I’m not sure how to close this off, so... TLDR; women are normal people. Stop exoticizing them. Stop objectifying the female body. Don’t use trans/queer characters as a scapegoat for your sexism.

Sincerely, a bigender lesbian who’s sick and tired of all this.

*‘Male’ and ‘female’ are used to refer to biological sex. When I talk about gender, I will say men and women.

**When I say dominant, I mean ‘in control’ of the sexual situation. This was determined by considering factors such as written personality, physical position, and how they behaved. Vice versa for submissive. I don’t intend to use these terms as an equivalent to what they mean in BDSM language, though several of the fics attempted to or did portray BDSM relationships. I also do not mean these terms to be equivalent to ‘top’ or ‘bottom’.

#utmv #sexism cw #important #fandom talk

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bills-pokedex · 3 years

Text

Worldbuilding Month: Day 3

{According to my outline, today was supposed to be “explain to the audience that culture is not erased but rather embraced; it just happens to coexist alongside Common and other international efforts for unity and peace,” but because yesterday’s post was so in-depth, fuck it, we’re talking about gay stuff.

Putting this behind a cut because the intro is long and the meat of the post is longer, and also, I’m one of those people who say the word “queer” a lot and would prefer to have this up as a warning so I don’t have to explain to folks why it’s okay and why the “queer is a slur” thing is TERF rhetoric.

Because Pokémon is a children’s franchise from a country that’s somehow more conservative about LGBT+ issues than the United States, it should come as no surprise that there’s very little explicit queer rep in canon, and anything that could conceivably connected to the LGBT community is either: A) actually fanon, or B) treated as a joke. (See any time crossdressing is brought up for the latter.)

It should also come as no surprise that I like to ignore this. Or, rather, I like to briefly touch on it now and then because I like the idea of using media to discuss topics of real-world importance, so the short answer about whether or not homophobia/transphobia/etc is dead is “legally, yes; culturally ... eeeeeeeeeeh.” As in, no one’s outlawed being queer. Gay marriage is legal everywhere. No government, national or otherwise, cares that you’re gay. Resources are not that difficult to find if you’re new to this and trying to figure things out, and the trainer community is very, very queer and very, very prone to having older trainers mentor younger ones so they can figure things out for themselves. (For the latter, the entire point of training according to trainers themselves is to go out, find themselves, and change their lives out there, so even if the rest of the world was just like it is IRL, honestly, training would probably be a lot like Tumblr, only with fewer TERFs and a lot more walking.)

On the other hand, there’s still a lot of tension. The entire idea of world unity and openness is still a pretty new thing, so older generations aren’t as accepting of queer people as the younger generations and various governments themselves are. There’s not really any violence, exactly, but it’s not exactly unusual for someone to have a parent who believes their lesbian daughters just need to meet the right person or a grandparent who’s just casually transphobic. The point is Bill’s world is definitely a utopia compared to ours, but it’s not perfect. Yet.

When it comes to culture beyond the old-fashioned folks out there, queer people are pretty well-accepted. There’s no push for having queer people in certain roles because on a greater scale, discrimination doesn’t exist. To that end, a lot of the characters you’re familiar with may be queerer than you think.

Which means I’m about to get into a List, but first, a couple of side notes:

1. The canon pokémon professors are largely ace, straight, or lowkey bi. Professor Juniper is definitely a lesbian, and Sycamore is pan, but the majority of the others are currently cis dudes in marriages with cis women, cis dudes who were once married to cis women, or Professor Magnolia (who’s aro). The point here is that most of the canon pokémon professors are at least attracted to a gender other than their own.

2. Giovanni is a painfully straight dilf, but the other evil team leaders are some form of queer. For example, Maxie is gay af, Archie is pan and in a poly relationship with his own executives, Cyrus is aroace, Ghetsis is sexually attracted to taking over the world (and himself), Lysandre is very gay and lowkey pining for Sycamore, Guzma is bi, Lusamine is also painfully straight, and Rose is pan but pretends to not be interested for the sake of the media.

3. All of the pokémon storage system administrators are queer with the exception of Amanita, who’s eight years old and therefore we are not going to fucking talk about what she wants right now. Granted, this is largely due to Bill’s habit of adopting every underdog he can find and turning them into administrators, and it just so happens that society’s most offbeat characters might be a little bit queer, generally speaking. I’ve gotten into which flavors of queer in previous posts, but I might bring it up again in a resource post of its own this month if people are interested.

4. Ash Ketchum is perpetually ten, so like Amanita, we’re not gonna talk about what he wants. He is, however, absolutely questioning his gender. (Red, who’s a separate character from Ash, will be mentioned below. Likewise for Blue, who’s separate from Gary. Alls I can say is Professor Oak had really bad luck with children and just so happens to have three orphaned grandchildren.)

That leaves the gym leaders, trial captains, kahunas, Frontier brains, and the Elite Four gauntlets/Champions, which are as follows:

KANTO

Brock is bi but doesn’t realize it.

Misty is painfully straight.

Lt. Surge is painfully straight.

Erika is trans and a lesbian. She may or may not be pining for Sabrina. (Related note: She’s the daughter of one of the kimono girls from the same troupe as Bill’s mother. I bring this up because of the whole technically canon point that only girls can learn the dances to summon Ho-oh and Lugia, which means Erika was taught these once she came out.)

Koga is ace but heteromantic.

Janine is a lesbian though. Koga doesn’t know, and Janine, knowing her father is super-traditional, has no intention of telling him, so she’s 100% in the closet.

Sabrina is ace but questioning her romantic orientation, and probably the only thing that gets her really flustered is the entire concept of romance (which is to say, Erika).

Blaine is gay.

Blue is very gay.

Lorelei is aroace.

Bruno is straight.

Agatha is straight and also salty over a failed relationship with Professor Oak. (Blue’s father is her son, by the way, but not Gary’s.)

Lance is gay af.

Red is pan and perpetually confused by Blue.

Trace does not exist idek what you’re talking about.

JOHTO

Falkner is bi.

Bugsy is aroace.

Whitney is a lesbian who likes to pretend she’s bi so no one questions why her gym is full of pretty girls only.

Morty is gay and publicly in a relationship with Eusine. (Or, at least, people know he’s in a relationship, but the media just refers to Eusine as “a local pokémon collector” and nothing more.)

Chuck is bi and happily married to his wife, thanks very much.

Jasmine is trans and aroace. (I like to pretend Special didn’t happen.)

Pryce is aroace.

Clair is probably the gayest gym leader you’ll come across. Yes, I’m including Kalos here.

Will is gay.

Karen is not only gay but also has been elevated to gay icon by the media. She is the sort of gay baby gays look up to and hope to be one day.

HOENN

Roxanne is trans but straight.

Brawly is bi.

Wattson is shockingly (no pun intended) straight and happily married.

Flannery is gay. She’s not as gay as Clair, but she comes very, very close. She’s also post-op trans.

Norman is aroace, and we won’t get into what that means for his marriage.

Winona doesn’t care for labels. (She’s nonbinary but goes by she/her and she’s pansexual.)

Liza and Tate are, like, eight, so we’re not getting into this either.

I take my comments about Clair back. She’s the most lesbian gym leader. The gayest gym leader, hands down, is Wallace. As an unrelated side point, he's not in a relationship with Steven Stone, contrary to popular belief.

Juan is Wallace’s gay mentor, but because he came from an older generation, his queerness is kinda toned down by comparison.

The entire Hoenn Elite Four is aroace. All of them. Glacia is trans.

Steven Stone is also ace, but he’s panromantic. He’s currently in a relationship with adventure.

SINNOH

Roark is gay.

Gardenia is gay. And trans.

Maylene is bi.

Crasher Wake? Gay.

Fantina? Gay.

Byron? Bi and married to a cis woman.

Candice? Gay.

Volkner? Very gay. Not dating Flint, weirdly enough. Yet.

Sinnoh is famous for having an extremely gay lineup, in other words. It’s a meme among the pokémon training queer community that one day, everyone will just move to Sinnoh and be ridiculously gay in the snow.

The Elite Four, however, is three-out-of-four gay, with Aaron, Flint, and Lucian being the gay ones here. Bertha is not gay but rather aroace and also trans.

Cynthia isn’t gay, contrary to popular belief, but she is in a wlw relationship. She’s actually pan, and her partner is Diantha.

UNOVA

Cilan is straight. Chili is ace. Cress is gay.

Lenora is bi and extremely happily married.

Burgh is aroace and nonbinary. (Pronouns are they/them or he/him.)

Elesa is ace but doesn’t quite know where she is romantically speaking.

Clay is extremely straight and furthermore one of those old-fashioned people I was talking about earlier.

Skyla is a very proud lesbian.

Brycen is gay and in the closet because he’s afraid Unovan tabloids would have a field day with that.

Drayden is gay, but Iris is pan.

Cheren is gay but too uptight to admit it.

Roxie is bi and also poly, incidentally.

Marlon is bi.

Shauntal is gay. She has a crush on Caitlin.

Marshal is gay.

No one really knows which way Grimsley goes, and he seems to delight in not telling anyone. (He’s bi.)

Caitlin is a very tired trans woman who’s also bi.

KALOS

You would think Kalos would be gayer than Sinnoh, but actually no. A lot of them are actually straight, bi, or simply ace.

Viola, Ramos, and Wulfric are all the “we’re just cis and straight” crowd.

Grant, Korrina, Clemont, and Valerie are all ace.

Valerie is homoromantic, though.

Olympia is bi and also post-op trans.

Malva is straight and once had an unfortunate thing for Lysandre.

Wikstrom is straight.

Siebold is shockingly straight, to the surprise of literally everyone before he’d clarified this point.

Drasna is gay ... which is also to the surprise of literally everyone, who all thought she was straight.

Diantha is openly gay, but her relationship with Cynthia isn’t public knowledge. She leans into the gay identity to be a lesbian icon for younger queer kids, but she’ll still accept roles for straight characters (even ones in romance movies) because she wants to also show off her range as an actress.

ALOLA

Ilima is gay and trans.

Lana is eight and what is this.

Kiawe is bi.

Mallow is also gay and trans.

Sophocles is aroace.

Acerola is surprisingly not ace but rather just simply straight. I have this headcanon because I refuse to make a pun out of her name.

Mina is pan af.

Hala is straight.

Olivia is very, very straight.

Nanu is too tired to care. (At one point, he was bi, though.)

Hapu is a baby gay.

Kahili is an awkward af gay.

Molayne is not only gay, but he’s also the storage system admins’ wise gay uncle, who possesses the only brain cell among the storage system admins’ gay community. He’s also nonbinary (they/them or he/him), but he’s honestly extremely chill about pronouns.

GALAR

Galar is basically the Sinnoh for bi people, ngl.

Milo is bi.

Nessa is bi.

Kabu is bi.

Bea is bi.

Allister is eight years old and what is this. (Probably ace, though.)

Opal is actually pretty straight. She was once in a relationship with Mustard.

By contrast, Bede is very gay. And also trans.

Gordie? Bi.

Melony? Bi.

Piers? Very bi.

Marnie is bi but kinda denies it.

Raihan is extremely gay and for some reason thinks the other Galarian gym leaders are gay too.

Klara is bi.

Avery is bi.

Leon is bi.

Mustard is straight and once had a relationship with Opal but is currently happily married to someone else.

Peony is basically like Clair and Wallace for straight people. Like ... he’s the straightest person you will ever meet. Take all the stereotypes about straight people, remove the toxic masculinity, and distill the results down, and you will have Peony. Peony is so straight you can use him to hang pictures perfectly. He’s so straight that if you’re ever insecure about whether or not you’re gay enough, you need just to stand next to Peony for five minutes. Peony is basically why almost everyone else is a little bit bi—because Arceus or Mew or whoever put all the straightness in the world into Peony and went, “Wow, I think I went a little too far.” Peony is that straight.

ORANGE ISLANDS

Most people probably don’t care about this region because it’s an anime only, but I care.

They’re all gay. Luana’s daughter exists because of a sperm donor, but Luana herself isn’t married and is very much a lesbian.

Furthermore, Rudy is trans because Electric Tales of Pikachu once made a trans joke about him, and you know what? I’m going to fix that so it’s something that actually respects trans people.

The Orange Islands are basically the other location gay trainers say they’ll turn into a queer commune, only it’s for gay people who judge the snow-loving gays hardcore. (To be fair ... they have a valid point. Listen. Listen, my fellow queer people. Why would you want snow when you could have sunny beaches and no frostbite?)

BATTLE FRONTIER

Anyway, Noland is aroace.

Greta is ace but biromantic.

Tucker is nonbinary (they/them or he/him) and also aroace.

Lucy is straight, shockingly enough.

Spenser is aroace.

Brandon is aroace.

Anabel is bi.

Palmer is straight.

Thorton is aroace.

Dahlia is homoromantic but ace.

Darach is 100% straight.

Argenta is aroace.

The Battle Frontier is, in other words, the closest thing to a Sinnoh or Galar for ace people. }

#worldbuilding month #resources #pokemon headcanon #pokemon lore #long post

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